f^ 



'-^:^F^(^¥^-^ 




I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.; 



i 



ling. 



|op8risIil |\! 



.JZ^. 



^/ 



It.... 



I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. | 




■^'a/iDr?*/! to Aurora III 




'l7„.IY 



TBB 



OriotIN and Destiny op Man, 



H. W. THOMAS, D.D. 



PEONOGRAPHIG REPORTS OF A SERIES OF SUNDAY 
EVENING SERMONS, 



AURORA. ILL. : 

PiBRGE Burton & Oo, 

1877. 



^ 








COFYBISHT, 1877, 

By pierce burton & CO. 



PREFACE. 



The following discourses were delivered in the ordinary coarse of 
pastoral labors, and without the least thought that they should ever 
reach the public in print. Indeed, the first one was published 
before I knew that it had been reported. Their appearance in book 
form now is due to the request of those who heard them — a request 
that I could not well deny, and yet, knowing how imperfect the work 
must be, felt reluctant to grant. I could not revise them, beyond 
some mere verbal corrections, or the addition of an occasional sen- 
tence, without writing them entu-e, and then they would have ceased 
to be what they now honestly are, verbatim reports ; and so I let 
them go to the world, word for word, as caught by the faithful 
stenographer. Anything like an exhaustive discussion of so large a 
subject was not possible in a few brief talks ; nor was more attempted 
than to suggest outlines of thought, and in some measure to direct 
the thinking of those who came to hear. 

As to the views here expressed, I can only say that they are such as 
have taken shape in my own mind as seeming to be most reasonable, 
and possibly nearest the truth. On many points I felt — and, feeling 
it, expressed — a sense of uncertainty. The dogmatists who know, or 
rather think they know, everything, will probably not find satisfaction 
in reading these pages. But those who, with myself, deeply conscioua 
of the mystery of hfe, are glad to see at aU, even though it be 
"through a glass darkly," may, I trust, find some thought or word to 
help them by the way. 



vr Preface, 

Writing these words now, recalls tearful memories of a little more 
than a year ago. When the discourse on "Death" was given, the 
typhoid fever had entered our home, and was also fastening upon 
myself, so that I was scarcely able to go through the service. I was 
not in the pulpit again for eight long weeks ; and then when the storm 
was past, and the sun shone out brightly again, one of our number — 
our dear httle Lollie, who had been with us more than seven beautiful 
years — had passed beyond the reach of the chill and the fever. She 
had entered the golden gates. Yes, these sermons are bound up with 
the memory of the early going away of that fair, sweet Ufe, and with 
grateful recollections of the prayers and sympathies of the good 
people of Aurora, and of one of the kindest congregations that ever 
Burroxmded a minister's family in the hour of trial. 

H. W. T. 

JLwrora, iS., May^ YiTl, 



KOTE BY THE PUBLISHEKS. 



These discourses were delivered in the First Methodist Episcopal 
Church of Aurora, Illinois, in the Winter of 1875-6, and the following 
Spring, and were reported for and puhhshed in The Auboba Herald. 
They awakened a deep interest in those who heard or read them, and, 
in deference to oft-repeated requests, they are now given to the public 
in this permanent form. The questions discussed are of universal 
interest, and the popular manner in which they are here handled will 
commend the book to the great mass of people who seek the truth, 
but are repelled by the harsh dogmatisiji that marks the ordinary 
iheological treatise. 



CONTENTS. 



I— GOD, OR FIRST CAUSE, - - - 9 

n— CREATOR AND CREATED, - - 19 

in— ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF OUR RACE, - 83 

IV-THE PROBLEM OF EVIL, - - 47 

Y-THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD, - - 59 

VI-SALVATION, - - . - 75 

Vn-THE CHANGE WE CALL DEATH, - - 89 

Vni— THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, - 101 

IX— THE INTERMEDIATE STATE, - - 116 

X— THE RESURRECTION, - - - 127 

XI— THE JUDGMENT DAY, - - - 143 

Xn— THE QUESTION OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT, 157 

Xm— THE HEAVENLY WORLD, - - - 173 

XIV— CLOSING THOUGHTS, - - - 188 



GOD, OR FIRST CAUSE. 



In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. — Genesis, i, 1. 

WE say that this is the 12th day of December. We 
say that this is the year 1875. We say that it is the 
Sabbath evening, and that we are gathered here in 
the house of worship. We say that we look into each other's 
faces, and that you hear my words. But is this a dream, or is 
it reality? For in the night-time we have often dreamed 
that we have seen large assemblages ; we have heard music 
and singing ; we have listened to sermon or lecture ; "we 
have loved, we have hoped, we have wept, we have been 
glad — and in the morning we have found it was only a 
dream. There have not been wanting, in our world's history, 
those who have held that all our day-life is only another 
kind of a day-dream. And, when we come to think of it, it 
is not the easiest thing to disprove this. I do not know how 
to prove that I am here better than just to say so. I do not 
know how I can be much more certain of the fact than I am 
of certain facts in my dreams. Yet some how we feel that 
there is something more in this life than simply an illusicn, 
And I guess that our senses do not deceive us. The revolving 



10 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

earth is benoatli our feet ; the heavens are above our heads. 
But if this be so, how came we here ? How and whence did 
we come ? Are we the results of some process of material 
nature, the fortuitous concurrence of innumerable atoms, or 
are we the creatures of a living God ? Is there an order and 
a plan about our being ? Shall our days end with the autumn 
and the snow, or will there be a spring time, and shall we 
awake in the long to-morrow and be forever ? 

Such great questions as these press unceasingly upon 
thoughtful men. They are the real questions that stay by 
men and women, lingering ever near the head and the heart.* 
They are the questions which we ponder in the morning 
before we arise, and in the night-time after we lie down. I 
have thought to draw your attention to them in a number of 
discourses ranging through these wide realms of thought. In 
the method of these discourses my remarks will be purely 
extemporaneous, and they will be addressed to the ear rather 
than to the cold, critical eye that reads the printed page. I 
want to talk to you as familiarly from this desk as I would by 
your firesides, and I shall place first among the guides along 
our pathway, common sense — the grand faculty of human 
reason. I promise you that nothing shall knowingly pass 
from this pulpit that is contrary to reason. And I say, just as 
frankly, that I bow down my head to the light that is above 
reason, but I am not willing to admit a contradiction. There 
is a diflference between a mystery and a contradiction. I have 
no patience with that school of philosophers and theologians 
that would belittle human reason. Every man and every 
woman owes it to himsolf or herself to be true to the head 



God, or First Cause. 11 

they carry as well as to tlie heart that beats within them. We 
shall gather what light we can from the Bible and from the 
histories that have been written of our earth. We shall open 
some of the pages that have been devoted to science, and thus 
try to bring the mind to the knowledge of truth, come whence 
it may. We shall many times come to places where it is dark 
and difficult, to problems that we cannot yet solve, and often 
we shall have to turn away and say, "It is not all clear." 
There will be many in the audience, perhaps, who, on some 
points, will have more right to take the stand and be the 
preacher, while I sit and listen. Yet I trust we may all be 
benefited by the discussion. 

We have all felt the constant coming up of the great prob- 
lem of the First Cause, and have pondered the other questions, 
closely connected with it, of the origin of our race, the crea- 
tion of our earth and the universe of which it is a part. I 
speak to-night upon the thought of God, or the First Cause. 
Next Sunday night I shall take up the question of Creator 
and Created, and then pass along to questions more directly 
related to ourselves. 

The human mind is so constituted that it is ever seeking 
for causation, and it never rests till in this it is satisfied. If a 
man is taken sick, he experiences relief and feels better the 
moment he has traced the malady to its immediate cause. In 
seeking causation, there has been in all ages the thought of a 
first cause — a cause that seems to be back of what appears to 
the eye ; and the question arise.:;, how is it that we all come, 
in looking at nature, to think of a power back of what we 
Bee? I will suggest, as has been done by a distinguished 



12 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

author, one of the sources from which this inquiry for a first 
cause comes to us. We are conscious in ourselves that there 
is a power within us — a power by which we open and close 
our hands, move the limbs in walking, or look out of the eyes 
and see the objects before us. Now the mind observes that 
the elements about us seem to be be doing certain things : 
trees grow, water runs, clouds drift across the sky, storms 
fttreep over the earth. Hence, I suppose, the uninstructed 
mind has been disposed to place in everything that has the 
power of motion, conscious volition. If a savage were looking 
&t a clock for the first time, he would probably first notice the 
motion of each wheel, and think that it had life in itself; then 
perhaps he would observe that some wheels moved other 
wheels, and finally he might discover that one wheel moved 
all the rest. So of the human mind. It is ever struggling 
toward that which tends to unite all roads and bring together 
all powers, and put them nearer and nearer into one — and 
thus reaches unity. First Cause, or God. 

Looking back to the days contemporary with Darius and 
Cyrus, you will find among the speculations of the first think- 
ers of Greece the thought of Thales. His mind rested on 
water as the great first cause. That seemed to him the most 
universal element in all nature. It made mighty rivers, and 
sent them flowing to the still mightier ocean ; it descende d 
from heaven in showers of rain that refreshed man and beast ; 
it was even one of the chief components of the fluids that 
circulate in the human body. It seemed to the mind of 
Thales to pervade everything. Hence he came to the conclu- 
sion that water was the life of everything. After him came 



Gody or First Cause. 13 

Anaximenes. He thought Thales had made a mistake ; that 
it was not in water but in air that the first principle of all 
things was to be found. What was more universal than the 
air ? After him came Pythagoras, taking up the same question. 
He, being a mathematician rather than an observer, placed 
the foundation and origin of things in numbers. What 
struck the mind more prominently than the unit ? No matter 
what combinations you mr.ke, still the unit is there. He went 
a step farther, and, being a musician as well as a mathema- 
tician, he thought it was not only in numbers but in time, 
and in music and mathematics together he thought he had 
discovered the first cause. 

The thinking of our time reduces the question to a fev 
simple propositions, and we have three prominent forms of 
thought : first. Atheism ; second. Pantheism ; third, Theism, 
or the doctrine of the Bible. The Atheist believes there is no 
God. The second form of thought, or Pantheism, is that 
Eastern doctrine which holds that God is everywhere and in 
everything ; that when we say God, we mean the vast system 
of things — in short, nature itself. In contrast with this, we 
have that form of thought v/hich is the basis of Christianity. 
This distinctly separates the living God from the universe. 
The Bible familiarizes us with the thought of a personal God, 
a living God, who exists aside from and independent of these 
things as much as a mechanic is independent of the house he 
builds, or the author of the work which his brain conceives 
and executes. Now the great question is, how to reach and 
rest in the conclusion of a personal, living God, and those who 
have not given much attention to the subject can hardly 



14 The Origin and Besiiny of Man. 

realize how difficult it is for the mind to reach absolute cer- 
tainty. And the more we look over the field, the less inclined 
are we to fly in the faces of those who cannot find God. 

I will give you the best reason we have on this subject, and 
yet it fails to satisfy all minds. We lay down the propo- 
sition that something is. Then we advance a step, and say 
that either something always was, or else there was a time 
when there was nothing. Now, if there was a time when 
there was nothing, there would be nothing still, for you 
cannot conceive that something came out of nothing ; but as 
something is, therefore something always was. I do not see any 
possible flaw in this argument, but it only proves that some- 
thing always was. It may have been matter, or it may have 
been something back of matter. Now we reason from cause to 
effect. From a design and an intelligence we raach the 
conclusion that there was a designer back of the thing 
designed. If some one hears a piece of music played on the 
organ, he naturally supposes that intelligence and skill must 
have been used to construct an instrument that would produce 
such harmony. If he visits a woolen mill or a silver-plate 
factory, he does not need to be told that the very highest 
intelligence was required to construct the intricate machinery 
that produces such beautiful and beneficent results. But 
there are different ways of accounting for these things. One 
man would say that some thinker planned this organ ; some 
mechanic designed and constructed the machinery in the 
woolen factory and in the silver-plate factory. Another man 
might come along and say: "Don't you know better than 
that ? The way these things came was this : There was a 



God, or First Cause. 15 

ft great storm centuries, ages ago, -whicli brought into, exist- 
ence the raw materials of v/hich these various articles are 
made. Another storm blew together the saw-mill that sawed 
the lumber, and the furnace and the rolling-mill which smelted 
the iron and made the steel. Another storm took that iron 
and steel and lumber, and fashioned them into the forms and 
shapes and combinations that pour forth the rich harmony 
which delights our sense of hearing, that make the fabrics 
which give warmth and comfort to the body, and that produce 
the beautiful wares which adorn our tables. Now, are you so 
far behind the times that you will believe that there was any 
intelligent design directing these various and delicate opera- 
tions ?" So would some men reason. Well, I should prefer to 
believe that some intelligent being built the organ, and the 
mill, and the factory. I cannot believe that chance did all 
this. The papers will come out in the morning, freighted 
with intelligence and thought. Some may think that their 
regular appearance is all the result of chance ; but when I 
take up a copy of one of them, I cannot believe otherwise 
than that design and intelligence have been at work express- 
ing thought, gathering news, arranging the types, and 
performing all the operations necessary to make a newspaper. 
And though I have never seen God, and have never touched 
His robes, and though my reason cannot find its way into 
His presence, yet do I feel that it is more reasonable to 
suppose that He designed and created this world than to 
believe that these things came here by chance. 

The only trouble in the argument is this : We trace back 
the construction of the organ to the hand and brain of man, 



16 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

and we say God made man ; and then the question that trem- 
bles on the lips of all is, Who made God ? And we are all 
silent. The smallest child can go j ast as far in answer to that 
question as the wisest philosopher. But this I can say : if 
we reach what seems to be final causation, I do not see that 
we are compelled to go beyond that. And in the thought of 
an all-creating and informing Spirit that is back of ns, I rest 
with a degree of mental comfort. Yet it is, after all, rather 
by my heart that I perceive and know God, than by my 
thinking that I find Him out. 

But here is another thing. Something always was. Was 
that something which was first matter or mind ? It is sup- 
posed that Tyndall, in projecting his vision over the past, and 
finding in matter the origin of all things, has gone in the 
direction of Pantheism, if not Atheism. Let us admit this 
fact. Matter was first ; but mind is now. We see its works 
in the poetry of Homer, the mathematics of Newton, the 
reason of Bacon, the philosophy of Aristotle. Now, if matter 
existed first, matter has made mind. And if matter can make 
mind, I do not see why it cannot make the Mayor of a city or 
the Governor of a State. If there is something in matter that 
can turn out minds like those of Shakespeare or Milton, 
where shall it end ? Indeed, why should it not maintain 
its progression, and finally produce an archangel, or even a 
God ? If matter was first, and mind second, then matter 
has brought forth that which controls it. But as mind seems 
to be the superior thing here, I prefer to think that mind 
was first, and to believe that an informing Spirit made things 
take their shape. 



God, or First Cause. 17 

Now, what do we include under the thought of this Fireft 
Cause ? What do we mean when we pronounce the name of a 
living God ? The thought we seek to express is this : that God 
is^ ijhe principle of principles — the unit that contains all the 
principles — the sum of all the principles. We have a concep- 
tion of power — that vast something that resides in things, by 
which we move, and by which the world is upheld. We have 
a conception of wisdom — that wisdom which is the sum of all 
wisdom, that arranges everything, that is back of everything, 
and in everything. We have a conception of goodness — the 
goodness that prompts to deeds of charity and kindness. We 
have a conception of beauty — the beauty that exists in all 
nature, in the glistening dew-drop, in the opening flower, in 
the winding stream. In equal degree we have the conception 
of truth, and of love, and justice. Now, we have all these 
thoughts, but do we hold them as mere abstractions ? We 
speak of beauty, but not as an abstract thing. The beauty 
that is in the flower is concreted there, and is a part of it. So 
of all the qualities named. We do not think of them as mere 
names for some subtle things that we cannot grasp. They 
are concreted in the objects to which we apply them. I take 
all these thoughts of power, and wisdom, of goodness, and 
beauty, and truth, and love, and apply them to God, not as 
abstractions, but as qualities that inhere in and constitute 
the personality of the Supreme Being. 

When I have done this, I have indicated the last labor that 
mankind can do in spelling out the name of God. It is He 
who kindlas in my poor brain and yours the power of 
thought, the sense of right, the hope of immortality. This is 



18 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

the Being whose face is seen in the storm and is reflected 
back from sky and star; that Being who is the sum of all 
goodness, and wisdom, and beauty ; who makes possible the 
blush on the maiden's cheek and the tear in the mother's eye ; 
who makes possible all there is in our poor yet grand natures. 
And this Supreme Being speaks to us as our Father, yearning 
over us in the tenderness and depth of a love that streams 
down from the starry way. The absolute and the infinite was 
manifest — became the finite in the Son of God. This great 
Being is not only Eather but Saviour. He, in the person of 
His Son, went down into the manger and among the little 
children that He might show us how near we are to the ox 
in the stall and the child in the cradle. He went to Geth- 
semane, and suffered on Calvary, that God might be revealed 
to you and to me — that He might look through human eyes, 
and speak with human lips — that the love which palpitates 
over the universe might beat in a human heart. My friends, 
trust Him as Father, trust Him as Saviour. Compared with 
His greatness, His love and goodness, how less than nothing 
seems everj-thing that reigns beneath the skies I 



II. 



CEEATOK AND CEEATED. 



These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they 
were created, in the day that the Lord made the earth and the heav- 
ens.— Genksis, n, 4. 

ONE beautiful morning last summer, being a guest of an 
old and esteemed friend at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, the 
table had been spread for breakfast on the porch, 
beneath the shadow of a great tree. There had been nailed 
against the wall a small fruit-can, that served as a shelter and 
a nest for a pair of friendly wrens ; and it so happened that 
while we were sitting at the table, the young birds made their 
first attempt to reach the outside world. Watching them as 
they tried their strength and entered upon their new being, I 
fell to musing upon the fact of their origin. Only a few weeks 
before there had been nothing in the nest but the seemingly 
lifeless egg ; and now came forth the living bird. And I sup- 
pose, had I thought upon this without any knowledge of the 
facts, or had you so thought of it, and had we taken and 
examined one of those birds, we would have thought of some 
such process as this : that some skillful mechanic had wrought 
out the frame-work of the bird, moulding the bones and join- 
ing them together ; that some ingenious workman had made 



20 2^ he Origin and DesHay of Man. 

the muscles, the flesh and the vital organs ; that some artist 
had constructed the eye and the ear, and painted the -wings ; 
that some rare genius had brought the various parts together, 
given them a living organization, and thus made a living bird. 
And as I sat thinking of the wonderful mystery of the bird 
being evolved from the egg, my thoughts went on, and I tried 
to see the process by which not only birds but all the forms of 
animal and vegetable life are made. And this led me to the 
thought of God, or first cause, which I sought to lay before 
you last Sabbath evening. And having considered that 
thought, I come now to speak on the method and magnitude 
of God's creations. 

Beginning with the thought of a first cause, a living and 
informing intelligence, there comes up, as one of the prob- 
lems to be considered, the origin of matter — whether it were 
eternal or whether it were created. And when you come to 
think upon the fact of creation, it is one of the most difficult 
questions that the mind can attempt — the thought of creating 
that which in no sense existed before. The difficulties are so 
great that I am strongly incHned to agree with Sir William 
Hamilton, who says that when we come to the very crisis of 
creation, we cannot conceive that there was anything more 
in creation a moment after the act than there was in God the 
moment before, and nothing less in God the moment after 
than there was the moment before creation. But though 
it did not exist in the shape in which we now see it, yet there 
was, potentially, back in God Himself, all that we now see in 
outward creation. "He spake, and it was done; He com- 
manded, and it stood fast." And when we consider the 



Creator and Created. ^ 

method of God in creation, I think we make a great mistake 
if we think of Him as a workman operating from the out- 
side. Bather, I think, should we look upon Him as working 
from within — upon the universe as the thought of God 
projected and actualized — the thought of God taking shape 
in material things. If we so think of God having in His 
might once started life, beginning down in the simplest 
rudimentary forms, we soon realize how natural it is, and 
we see how the rudest forms have their correspondences in 
the highest types of created beings. As an example, take 
the thought of the lungs, and observe the thought rising from 
the simplest conception — that which nature has provided in 
the leaf of a tree — to the perfect lungs of man. Or take the 
thought of the hand. How wonderful is the progress, all the 
way from the wing of the bat, the leg and hoof of the animal, 
to the almost speaking hand of man. I say that, thinking of 
God in this way, as working from within, we may reflect upon 
His thought as actualized in the universe about us. I cannot 
refrain from thinking that the universe was, in a sense, born 
as well as made. It is in accordance with the teachings of the 
Scriptures that God impressed his thought upon matter; 
that the vast universe was not built as a mechanic builds his 
house ; but that in some way God breathed an informing and 
controlling spirit or life into matter, and that matter, impelled 
by this life and power, moved forward along the lines that 
God intended. 

Now, if you have succeeded in getting the thought I have 
indicated here, I will endeavor to give the possible process by 
which the worlds were made — looking at God not as an outside 



22 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

workman, bnt as somehow impressing the law of their being 
upon things, and things then moving forward in obedience to 
that law. When we look out upon the solar system, we are 
impressed with several facts. We are impressed with the 
thought of these stupendous worlds revolving around a com- 
mon centre, on a plane coincident with the plane of the 
ecliptic, and that this plane is coincident with the plane of 
the solar equinox ; that these planets all revolve in the same 
direction. The law of gravity is not responsible for this, and 
hence it has been supposed that there was a time when the 
material that composes our solar system existed in a nebu- 
lous state, and that this nebulous, vaporous mass filled all 
the space that would be included between the Sun and the 
orbit of Neptune. To this mass was given a rotary motion, 
and as it revolved, it would cool by radiation ; as it cooled, 
it would condense ; as it condensed, it would increase in 
velocity ; and as the velocity increased, the centrifugal force 
would become more powerful than the centripetal, and this 
would cause ring after ring to be thrown off. These rings 
would continue to revolve, and in breaking up would form 
centres of their own. This is the supposed process by which 
the all-controlling mind of God set the forces at work out 
of which was evolved this vast universe as simply and natur- 
^y as the little wren was evolved from its shell. 

Let us look out along this method and see its results. 
In the words of the text, "These are the generations of the 
heavens and of the earth, when they were created." I ask 
you to think for a moment upon the magnitude of this 
creation. Think of the Sun — that vast body constantly pour- 



Creator and Created. 23 

ing forth light and heat. It is said by astronomers that it is 
888,000 miles in diameter ; a line drawn through its centre 
would reach around our globe more than thirty-five times. 
Or think of it in another way. Suppose it were a hollow 
sphere, and that by some means our Earth were suspended 
in the centre of that sphere, and that we could stand upon 
Earth, and look up to the rim of the Sun ; so vast is the Sun 
that the surface our eyes would rest upon would be larger than 
the heavens we look at on a clear day. Look at it in still 
another way. It is said that the Sun is 1,384,000 times larger 
than our Earth. It is only by the aid of the imagination 
that we can take in this stupendous magnitude. Why, if the 
Sun were hollow, and worlds the size of this had been thrown 
in, one every day, since the time of Abraham, the Sun would 
hardly yet be filled up. 

Now, taking the Sun as a starting point, let us travel out- 
ward. At a distance of 35,000,000 miles, we come to the 
planet Mercury, sweeping around the Sun in eighty-eight 
days. In order to accomplish the circuit in so short a time, it 
moves with a velocity of 100,000 miles an hour. Traveling 
on, we come next, at a distance of 68,000,000 miles — I give the 
figures from memory, and the calculations have varied some- 
what in late years — we reach the planet Venus, a world not so 
large as ours, revolving around the sun in two hundred and 
eighty-eight of our days. Then we come to the Earth, at a 
distance of 91,000,000 or 92,000,000 miles from the Sun, having 
a diameter of 8,000 miles, turning on its own axis every 
twenty-four hours, revolving around the Sun in three hundred 
and sixty-five days, and having a satellite, or Moon, which, 



•34 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

acoording to our theory, was thrown off from the Earth while 
it was yet in a nebulous condition. Our satellite is 237,000 
miles distant from us, and revolves on its axis in such a man- 
ner as to always present the same surface to us. At a distance 
of 140,000,000 miles we come to the planet Mars, having a 
diameter of 4,400 miles, and completing its circuit around the 
Sun in about six hundred and eighty-six days. At a distance 
of 500,000,000 miles, passing beyond the Asteroids, we come 
to that wonderful old world, Jupiter, 92,000 miles in diam- 
eter, requiring twelve years to travel its long circuit around 
the Sun, having four satellites, or Moons, revolving around it 
in various periods. Beyond Jupiter, at a distance from the 
Sun of 906,000,000 miles, is the planet Saturn, 75,000 miles in 
4iameter, requiring thirty years to travel its stupendous cir- 
cuit around the Sun, having not only eight Moons, but its 
beautiful rings, that appear to us like threads of golden light. 
Then, traveling on to a distance of 1,888,000,000 miles, we 
oome to the world Uranus, requiring eighty years to perform 
its revolution around the Sun. Traveling still outward, 
2,800,000,000 miles from the Sun, we come to the latest dis- 
covered planet, Neptune, requiring one hundred and sixty 
years to traverse its orbit. 

As I look up to the starry way, and think of these vast mag- 
nitudes and distances, there comes a sense of the infinite, a 
sense of the wonderful power and wisdom of God, that is 
overwhelming. Yet this grand system of worlds, under God's 
informing thought, which His will impresses upon things — 
these worlds have slowly taken their places with all the ease 
and naturalness that the bud unfolds and the flower blooms. 



Creator and Created. 25 

And we have only touched upou the vast conception. The 
fitars that you see as you gaze upon the heavens are Suns, 
around which other worlds are moving, as our world moves 
about our Sun. So distant are these stars that light traveling 
at the rate of twelve million miles a minute requires nine years 
to reach us from the nearest fixed star. The light from the 
North Star is forty years in traveling to the Earth. From 
some it takes thousands and possibly tens of thousands of 
years. And thus we look upon this vast universe, systems of 
worlds rising one above the other — sun systems, group sys- 
tems, nebular systems, on up to the ultimate, or universe 
system. 

Having sketched these outlines of the solar system, I want 
to change the order, and return to our Earth, and give some 
thoughts as to the probable process by which it became what 
it is. This globe, then, was thrown off from the Sun. There 
would come a time when the Earth, by contraction and cool- 
ing, would form a crust. This crust would naturally exclude 
all matter that might be outside of it that had not been 
attracted to it. We now look at our world as a ball of fire, 
then, as it cooled, rolling on in darkness. This was the first, 
or azoic, period. No one knows how long this globe rolled on 
through space, a fiery mass of rock-encrusted substance, and 
then a world without light. Then there would come a time 
when the crust would cool, and the waters falling on it would 
gather about it. This was the paleozoic period, when the 
first forms of life began to appear. At first there were onty 
manifestations of vegetable life, but, later, forms of animal 
life began to appear. Geologists tell us that the life in that 



26 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

time was on a scale far greater than the life that is now on 
the earth. It was of a different form and of a grosser type 
than that we have now. Then comes the carboniferous 
period, when the air was so full of carbon that the forms of 
life that now exist could not breathe it. The soft and 
abundant vegetation absorbed the carbon and threw off oxy- 
gen, thus purifying the air, and fitting it for higher forms of 
life, and also storing this carbon away for the coal beds of 
onr day. Then we come to the mesozoic period, and to the 
cenozoic, or recent period before man, when the continents 
were lifted up, when the larger animals were disappearing, 
and when the forms of life upon the land became as they 
are now. Finally we come to the period of the finished 
world, the rivers having found their beds, the oceans having 
been gathered together, and the mountains uplifted — the 
period of flowers and fruits, and birds of song and plumage — 
a sweet, fair world, that God had builded for man. 

Now, if yon get my thought, you will see that God wrought 
from within, and all that there is in this vast universe was 
some how projected as the thought of God. And this 
thought of God impresses a law upon matter, in obedience 
to which it forms itself into worlds. 

I want now to ask your attention to the harmony between 
science and religion, between science and the Bible, on this 
subject. And some may be already saying, " What are yon 
going to do with that good old book of Genesis ?" The first 
point of correspondence is this The first words of this book 
are, "In the beginning, God." And it is the latest utterance 
of science — "In the beginning, God." You take any system 



Creator and Created. 27 

of pliilo^iophy, press that system back to tlie boundaries 
where the great thinkers stood and sought to look into the 
deep beyond, and those thinkers, all the way from Pythag- 
oras to Mill, have felt that there was some power back of 
this outward world. So in all the systems of science. 
Wherever science has pursued her investigations — whether she 
has brought her microscope to bear upon the very structure 
of the human blood, or has turned her long glass toward the 
heavens, science has at last to pronounce these words — "In 
the beginning, God." The latest utterance from Tyndall is 
that when he looks out into the vast deep of things, while he 
cannot put it into personality, yet there is a power back of 
all which he cannot grasp. He feels that there must be some- 
body who knows more about this than himself. 

Now I take another part of the correspondence between 
the teachings of geology and the account of the creation 
given in Genesis. It is here stated : 

"And the earth was without form, and void ; and darkness was upon 
the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the 
waters." 

The expression, "without form, and void," may possibly 
indicate the idea of matter being in a nebulous condition. 

"And God said, Let there be Hght : and there was hght. 

" And God saw the light, that it was good : and God divided the light 
from the darkness. 

" And God called the Hght Day, and the darkness he called Night. 
And the evening and the morning were the first day." 

It used to be thought a strange thing that light should ap- 
pear on the first day, whereas the sun was not created until 
the fourth day. But it is now admitted by scientists that 



28 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

cosmical light would be the result of the moving of this mass 
of unformed matter. Light is the result of molecular m. Mon. 
So that on this point science and the Bible have come to an 
accordance that is quite remarkable. Let us read agaia: 

" Aivl God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of tii ■ .ters, 
and Jc. it divide the waters from the waters. 

"Abd God made the firmament, and divided the waters whic'i vrere 
under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmaaica'c : 
and it vras so. 

*'An 1 God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the 
morning were the second day. 

" An 1 God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together 
unto one place, and let the dry land appear : and it was so. 

"And God called the dry land Earth ; and the gathering together of 
the Waters called he Seas : and God saw that it was good. 

"And God said. Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding 
seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in 
itseli, npon the earth : and it was so. 

" And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his 
kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his 
kind : and God saw that it was good. 

"And the evening and the morning were the third day." 

Geology teaches this same great fact of the uplifting of the 
continents, the slow receding of the waters so that the dry 
land appears, the gathering of the waters into their channels 
so that rivers and seas are formed. And science teaches this 
other remarkable fact, that vegetable life was created before 
animal life. The Bible and science come closely together 
here, though the critic may find apparent discrepancies, pos- 
sibly real ones. But there is a general correspondence that is 
most remarkable indeed. Again : 

" And God said, Let there l)e lights in the firmament of the heaven to 
divide the day from the night ; and let them be for signs, and for sea- 
sons, and for days, and years : 



Creator and Created. ^ 

"And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give 
light upon the earth : and it was so. 

"And God made two great hghts ; the greater hght to rule the day, 
and the lesser light to rule the night : he made the stars also. 

"And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light 
upon the earth, 

"And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light 
from the darkness . and God saw that it was good. 

" And the evening and the morning were the fom'th day." 

This account of the creation is not a scientific narration, 
but rather phenomenal. It is not probable that whoever 
wrote the book of Genesis understood these things from a 
scientific standpoint. He viewed them rather with the eye 
of a looker-on. The appearance of the Sun on the fourth 
day is one of the most rational things. Before that, dense 
fogs would cover the earth, and it would be a long period be- 
fore the rays of the Sun would pierce these murky vapors. 
But finally these would disperse, and there would come the 
Sun bursting forth in all its splendor. This is just what 
science would lead us to suppose. 

"And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving 
creature that hath hfe, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the 
open firmament of heaven. 

"And God created great whales, and every living creature that 
moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, 
and ever -vs-inged fowl after his Kind : and God saw that it was good. 

"And God blessed them, saying. Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill 
the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. 

"And the evening and the morning were the fifth day." 

First, the appearance of vegetable life ; after that, animal 
life, first in the waters, just where science places it, and then 
on the dry land. A remarkable coincidence again here. 

"And God said, Let the earth bring forth the Kving creature after his 



30 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

kind cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind ; 
and it was so. 

"And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after 
their kind, and every thing that creep eth upon the earth after his kind : 
and God saw that it was good, 

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness : 
and let them have dominion over the fish of the eea, and over the fowl 
of the air, and over the cattle, and over aU the earth, and over every 
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 

" So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created 
he him ; male and female created he them. 

"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and 
multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it , and have dominion 
over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every 
living thing that moveth upon the earth." 

Science has placed, first, vegetable life ; next, animal life ; 
and, finally and last, mankind. And this is just the order 
in which the Bible places them. Now I raise the question, 
how are we to account for this remarkable correspondence ? 
And here I want to read to you what has been thought on the 
subject in other lands, though I must necessarily be Tery 
brief. First, let us look at the cosmogony of the Babyloni- 
ans. They believed that — 

" The beginning of thmgs was in darkness and water, where nonde- 
script animals, hideous monsters, half-men and half-beasts, appeared, 
and after this, a woman — who personates the creative spii'it or jirinciple 
— Avas split into two parts, and the heaven and the earth produced by 
the di^dsion. Then Belus, the supreme deity, cut ofi" his own head, and 
his blood trickling down and minghng with the dust of the earth, pro- 
duced human creatures having intelligence and spiritual hfe. Accord- 
ing to the Phoenician cosmogony, that which first appeared was an 
ether or a mist difi"used in space. Then arose the wind, the representa- 
tive of motion, and from this agitation proceeded a spuitual God, from 
whom again in turn proceeded an cqq — which is so common a feature 
of the cosmogonies of antiquity — the division of which, as in the case 
of the woman, produced the heavens and the earth. The noise of 
thunder awaked beings into spiritual life. The Egyptian cosmogony 



Creator and Created. 31 

was in general harmony witli the Phoenician. Its principal divinity was 
Ptah, the world-creating power, who shaped the cosmic e^g, which 
again appears here, as in the Phoenician. There followed from Ptah a 
long succession of gods, with various powers— solar, telluric, psychical 
— ^from whom at length proceeded demi-gods, and from these again 
heroes, untU the link of our common humanity was estabhshed." 

How immeasurably superior to these accounts, in dignity 
and nobility, is the Bible record of creation, and how infin- 
itely more truthful, judged by the lights of science! 

Now, I say, if there were no inspiration from God back in 
the mind of the writer of this book, whether it was Moses or 
whoever it may have been, how came it that four thousand 
years ago he produced a work that now we place by the side 
of the latest revelations of science, and find that the corres- 
pondence between them is so striking? I say these things 
that young men, who have dipped a little into some branches 
of science, who have perhaps read a few numbers of the 
Boston Investigator, or imbibed crude notions concerning 
Tyndall's theories, and think that the Bible has been blown 
away as a myth, — that they may look at this great fact 
and see how, with this broader interpretation of Genesis, 
the truths of the Bible stand side by side with the truths 
of science. But I am asked, What do you do with these 
"days"? Well, when we come to compute geological time, the 
most we can do is to guess. The word " day," as here used, 
is simply an indefinite expression for time or a period. Some 
give to each of these periods millions of years, and in this 
view we get a clearer interpretation of the grand old saying 
that ' ' these are the generations of the heavens and of the 
earth." 

When I stand in the presence of such truths as these, and 



3S The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

look out upon tlie starry depths, and the great Earth sweeping 
through space, and the illimitable universe surrounding us, 
my very reason seems to totter as it stands out on the verge 
of thought, crying out for that cause which is back of it all. 
But I sit down by the babbling brook, I hear the singing of 
the birds, and behold the bursting of bad and blossom, and I 
thank God for that thought of the infinite over which a 
Socrates has struggled, over which a Mill has struggled, over 
which a Descartes has struggled. I thank God that in His 
mercy he has spoken to us in His word, and that His infinite 
spirit has given us something that we can rest upon. Oh, my 
friends, let us appreciate the Bible as an expression of His 
infinite wisdom and glory. Think of nature above this earth; 
think of the stellar depths where countless systems of worlds 
abide, and think of the infinite God above them all. Kejoice 
again that there was a Bethlehem; that the absolute God came 
down among men, clothed with finite conditions; that the In- 
finite Ruler of all revealed Himself to mortal sight as He 
went about healing the sick and blessing little children. 
"When I think of our Earth as a mere speck in the solar 
system, as something less than a speck in the vast universe 
about us, I rejoice that the infinite God not only created this 
inconceivable grandeur, and unfolded his beauty in the dew- 
drop and the flower, but that He has given His word that my 
poor soul and yours are safe in His keeping. The fires of the 
Sun may burn low, the vast system of worlds may fall back 
into chaotic ruin, but God has kindled a fire in our brains 
and in our hearts that will live and think and love forever. 
May that forever be in His presence. 



III. 

OEIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF OUE RACE. 



"When I consider thy lieayens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and 
the stars, which thou hast ordained ; M^hat is man, that thou art mindful 
of him ? and the son of man, that thou visitest him ? For thou hast 
made him a httle lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with 
glory and honor. —Psalm viii, 3-5. 

THERE is a wide difference of opinion among thoughtful 
men, and even among clergymen, as to the best method 
to pursue in reference to questions that lap over into 
the region of mystery and skirt along the borders of doubt. 
Some have thought that it is better for the pulpit to go on 
formulating truth and appealing to the heart, and let these 
questions take care of themselves. I have not a word of crit- 
icism to make on those who think this the better way. But, 
living in this thoughtful age, and feeling that these questions 
of difficulty and doubt meet us at almost every turn in life, — 
in the book or in the newspaper, in conversation, on the 
street, in the hotel, and in the places of business, — I have felt 
that I would not be doing my whole duty did I not attempt to 
deal with some of them from the pulpit. I cannot feel 
•willing that the youth who may listen to my words for a 
time shall go out into the world and encounter these ques- 
3 



34: The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

tions as something new, or hear of them first from the Hps of 
skeptics. I am convinced that these subjects will bear the 
light of criticism, and that, when the whole field is gone 
over, the highway of truth will be cast up, and the way to 
piety and religion made plainer to every honest mind and 
heart. 

There are some questions Ijing around our subject that are 
not without difficulty — questions whose solution is not yet. 
I shall turn your thoughts first to some reflections concerning 
the antiquity of our race. How long has man existed upon 
this little star ? According to the theories that we have 
advanced, our Earth is the youngest but two in the family of 
eight worlds that move about the Sun. According to those 
theories, there was a long time when there was no life on this 
planet. Then^ life began in the simplest forms of vegetable 
and animal existence in the waters. The higher forms were 
carried to the dry land as the continents were lifted up from 
the waters. How long ago it was that our Earth was stricken 
from the Sun, we may not even guess, nor how long it was 
before it was fitted to receive tho. simplest forms of life. But 
of this we are quite certain, that man was the last to appear 
as a living creature upon the Earth. The grass is older than 
man, and so are the trees. The worna, the fish, the bird, the 
beast of the field — all have an ancestry dating far beyond the 
advent of man. But one of the difficult questions that science 
has encountered is to fix within reasonably certain limits the 
time of man's advent. It is evident that we have to search 
for this in the geological records, and, so far as we may, read 
the appearances and indications of man's coming in his 



Origin and Antiquity of Our Race. 35 

works that have been discovered among ancient remains. 
Wherever we come across anything that has been shaped by 
the hand of man — the rude impiement of stone, or the instru- 
ment fashioned from the bone of some animal, or wherever 
we find evidences that a fire has been kindled — in all these 
facts there is proof that man has existed. 

Geologists, looking over this field, tell us that it seems 
certain that, in the islands of Great Britain, and on the 
plains of France, Denmark and other countries of the conti- 
nent of Europe, primitive man existed along with the cave 
bear, the cave lion, the rhinoceros, and other extinct sjjecies 
of mammalia. In the peat bogs of Denmark, ten, twenty or 
thirty feet deep, we have, first, the remains of forests of the 
beech tree ; beneath these lie the remains of great forests of 
oak, and beneath the oak lie immense forests of pine. We 
are told that the j^ine and the oak had disappeared before the 
days of Julius Caesar ; and it is estimated that great periods 
of time were required for those oak forests to have been over- 
laid, and beneath these again for the pine forests to have been 
buried. And we are also told that, down in the pine forest 
stratum, there are found the simplest stone implements of 
human construction ; that down in the oak stratum are found 
instruments of bronze, and in the beech instruments of iron. 
Now, from this evidence, it is plain that we have to press 
back the period of man's advent upon the Earth far beyond 
any date of which we have written record. 

You may take the historical evidence, and as far back as we 
go we find the existence of tlie three present predominant 
races of the world — the Caucasian, the Mongolian or Asiatic, 



36 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

and the Negro or African. And we are told, further, that, 
three thousand or thirty-five hundred years ago, there were 
made in Egypt pictures of the African race, reaching far back 
even in that remote day, and that these paintings comprise 
all the peculiarities that distinguish the Negro race to-day — 
the thick lips, protruding mouth, and retreating forehead. 
These pictures carry us back to a period not very remote from 
the flood, which is supposed to have occurred in the seven- 
teenth century from the beginning of the Adamic history. 

Now the question arises, how are we to reconcile these facts 
with Biblical chronology ? The theory generally accepted as 
founded on the Bible is that man appeared on the Earth 
about six thousand years ago. It seems impossible to put 
aside these testimonies of science, and yet how are we to har- 
monize them with the Scriptures ? I will suggest two theories 
that are entertained in the thinking world, how extensively I 
do not know. The one I would mention most prominently is 
advanced by Dr. McCausland, a learned and evangelical divine 
of the English church. He suggests that the Adam of the 
Bible was not the first man. The theory has been put forth by 
others. On first reading it, I hesitated before giving it any 
measure of acceptance ; but the more I reflected upon it, the 
more willing I became to see that it was probably true. And 
when we read the first chapters of the book of Genesis, we 
find there indications that Adam was not the first man. 
When Cain slew his brother Abel, aiid received his sentence 
from the Lord, he complained that his punishment was 
greater than he could bear — that all men, seeing him, would 
slay him. He went out, and married, and founded a city. 



Origin and Antiquity of Our Race. 37 

And the questions naturally arise, Who was he afraid of, if 
there were no other people? Where did he find a wife? 
Where did he find the people to build a city ? The learned 
author, whose theory I am suggesting here, thinks Cain went 
into China, for he holds that the Mongolian race existed 
before the Adamic, and the African before the Mougolii;n. 
And I frankly confess that on other grounds this theory 
seems not unreasonable to me, for I find it difficult to believe 
that from the high Adamic type of life has come the lower 
Negro type — that humanity took this backward direction. 

Another theory has been advanced by S. Baring Gould, 
which to some extent falls in with this. He holds that the 
first man of the Bible was the being who, in the course of 
ages, had come to the point where he was conscious of God, 
where he stood in the image of God. Now, I do not ask any 
one to accept this suggestion. For myself, I should rather 
accept some such interpretation than fly in the face of truths 
established by science, or pick the Bible chronology to pieces. 
As against either alternative, I prefer to believe that the high 
Caucasian race — the race that has been progressive as far 
back as we have any history — that the advent of this type of 
man occurred at the time and place mentioned in the Bible, 
about six thousand years ago. But the unity of the race? 
Well, there may be substantial unity of the race without all 
having sprung from the Adamic pair. The unity of the race 
is one thing ; the unity in Adam is quite another. I would 
rather such questions as these should come to the minds of 
young people as stated from the pulpit, than that they should 
first read of them in the newspapers, or hear them lightly 



38 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

spok(>n of on steamboat or car, or learn of them from some 
skeptic as something that was bound to upset the Bible. 

Another question we now come to is the origin of the race. 
We have certainly been hero six thousand years ; how much 
longer, we may not say. The question is, liom did we come 
here ? Our theory in reference to the creation was substan- 
tially this : That back of all things was an all-creative mind — 
a first cause, or God. This all-creative intelligence we believe 
moved upon matter, projecting its life-thoughts into life- 
forms ; moving along the realm of the vegetable world, from 
the siiwplest to the most perfect of its forms ; moving along 
the animal kingdom, from the lowest forms to the highest and 
most perfect. Now, when we carry our investigations back 
into the realm of animal life, we find the simplest radiate 
form, as in the star-fish, a little burr-like type of life, hardly 
organized. We may see above this the moUuscan type, 
which has a bony structure on the outside, the vital organs 
within being connected therewith. Just above this is the 
articulated form, having the limbs articulated and joined to 
the bony structure. Next we have the vertebrate form of 
life — a life built along a spinal column, the limbs being 
joined on this spinal or leading column. Th is last form of 
life appeared first in the waters, then upon the dry land in 
the form of the serpent ; then it was lifted up in the quadru- 
peds. Now, following this line of thought, we find that in the 
vertebrate form of life in the fish, the face is parallel with the 
spinal column ; if the fish were stood up on end, it would look 
backward. As life came out on the land, in the reptile, the 
power to elevate the head and face was given. The face took 



Origiyi and Antiquity of Our Race. 39 

an angle, as in the quadrupeds, and was gradually raised, till 
in man it lias attained the full limit of progression, and is 
parallel with the chest. We notice, too, this other remarka- 
ble fact, that what were the fore-legs in the quadruped have 
become the arms and hands in man, so that man has both 
hands and legs and stands erect. Physiologists, ezamining 
the arm and hacd, would find in them the marks of a superior 
being. It is the hand that swings the cradle and the scythe ; 
that pushes the plane and guides the saw ; that handles the 
brush and the chisel, making the canvas and the marble to 
speak; that smooths the hair of the sick, and plays with 
the curls of childhood ; that wipes the dews from the brow 
of death ; that digs the grave, and lowers our comrade to his 
last rest. 

But not alone is the hand one of the marks of man's higher 
being. The more finely finished features of man are another. 
Take the mouth. The mouth of the fish is expressionless. 
In the alligator the mouth has expression, but it is only the 
expression of destructiveness. The dog's mouth has expres- 
sion, but it is spoiled by the ugly snarl. In the ox and the 
lamb it simply tells of gentleness and docility. It is only 
when you reach the mouth of man that you find the perfect 
feature and the most varied expression. The lips of man may 
be eloquent when silent. The mouth of man may speak love 
and hate, joy and sorrow. The mouth of man alone is known 
to give forth the merry sounds of laughter. Or take the eye. 
The eye of the fish or the insect is almost wholly destitute of 
expression. The fish has a vacant, corpse-like look, and not 
■what we call expression in any full sense. The eye of the 



4:0 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

serpent has aa expression of cuuiiiug ; and that of other ani- 
mals is marked by some trait characteristic in a general way 
of the species to which they belong. But it is only when yoa 
reach the eye of man that yon behold the soulful eye, the joy- 
ful eye, the tearful eye. As the mouth of man is the only 
mouth that laughs, so the eye of man is the only eye that is 
known to weep. 

The question may arise here as to the origin of man specif- 
ically — whether by a special act of creation, or by gradual 
development from some germ of a lower type ; and I may 
surprise you by saying that I don't know. Before I reached 
forty, I felt it a shame that I could not answer everything 
,that people asked me. But in the last few years — and I am 
just past forty — I have reached a point where I can frankly 
say, in reference to many things, "I don't know." And I 
am approaching a point where I can say in reference to many 
things, "I don't care." I have reached a point where the 
one thing I want to know is, what are the facts in the case ? 
All I want to know is the simple truth. I do not think the 
Darwinian theory has clearly made its point. There are 
many things that point in the direction of that theory, yet 
we can afford to wait till we have more light. But grant 
that the Darwinian theory is true, what of it ? It does not 
affect religion one way or the other. Is there a God back of 
creation ? That is the fundamental question to settle, and 
that, in the minds of all great thinkers, I take to be well 
settled. Whether the human race began away down in the 
lower structures of life, and took millions of years to reach 
its present development, or whether by soiuo mechanical pro- 



Origin ami Antiquity of Our Race. 41 

cess the dust of tlio earth was made up into a clay man, so be 
it. If the creation of man was a special act of Omnipotence, 
or if the first pair was evolved from some rudimentary cell, so 
be it. It does not affect the Bible as I understand it, and I 
am very certain it does not affect the question of piety. It is 
just about as reasonable for a man to reject the Scriptures 
and renounce religion on any of these grounds, as it would 
be, if the physicia ns of the city were to meet to discuss some 
question of medicine, for him to say, "I cannot get religion 
till this question of quinine or strychnine is settled." And I 
deem it unreasonable for Christian people to persecute Dar- 
win for following out a line of inquiry and endeavoring to 
ascertain where it leads. I want young people to know that 
these theories do not affect the great questions of spirituality 
and religion, and that tru th will not finally suffer, nor can it 
ever fall to the ground. 

Now let U3 take a deeper look within the organism that we 
call the body — for that body is only the house in which man 
Uves, only the tent in which he dwells, only the casket which 
holds the soul. What is that, my friends, within this body 
by which I am saying these things, by which we think, by 
which oar sciences are construe ted that enable us to read the 
records of the Earth and measure the distances to the stars ? 
We say it is mind, but then what is mind ? None of us 
know, again. We can give it one name in English, and 
another in Latin, and another in German ; but that is alL 
What the mind of man is, none of us know. The nearest we 
can approach to a solution of the question is to classify its 
phenomena, and tell what it does. What are some of its 



4:2 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

powers ? In the first place, it has the acquisitive power — the 
faculty of learning, of acquiring. How it does this, again, it 
is very hard to tell. Whether the eye goes out to the flower, 
or whether a picture of the flower is brought to the eye, we 
cannot certainly tell. This we do know : we can go out 
through our senses and learn of the objective world. And it 
is perfectly wonderful how much we can learn. How much 
we learn even in the early days of childhood. Names, places, 
forms, dates, and ten thousand other things, are poured into 
the child's mind in a few years. 

The acquisitive power of the mind is in itself a marvel, but 
there is a still greater marvel. Not only can we acquire, but 
we have the power of conserving what we have acquired. 
How do we do this? What is that strange power by 
which we store away what we have learned ? Does what 
we see form a kind of picture, and imprint itself on the 
mind? Does the sound we hear possess some faculty of 
registering itself, so that time cannot efface it? Again, 
none of us can tell. Back of these wonderful powers is a 
greater mystery still — the power of reproducing. How do we 
reproduce, or call up, what we have put away ? You go down 
the street some day, and a face passes by, and you turn and 
say, *'Ihave seen that face before." You take the hand in 
yours, and look steadily in the face, yet you cannot distinctly 
recall it ; but all at once the mother throws her arms around 
the strange man's neck, and cries, "My son!" Years have 
passed since she saw him. Millions of pictures and faces 
have flitted before her mind ; but this face stayed there. She 
remembers him as a young man of eighteen or twenty — 



Origin and Antiquity of Our Race. 43 

radiant and hopeful, with ruddy cheeks, erect form, sparkling 
eye and raven hair ; now she looks upon the bronzed features 
of middle age, furrowed with the lines that time has plowed. 
The picture has changed, but to the eye of the mother it is 
just as she saw it twenty years ago. How is it done ? You 
hear a voice on the street or in the assembly, and you say, 
"I have heard that voice before." And you listen, and all at 
once you recognize a friend of years gone by. How many 
sounds have pressed upon the ear since that voice was last 
heard ! The rattle of the cars, the rush of the steamboat, the 
merry laugh, the moan of pain, the ripple of waters, the song 
of birds, the peal of thunder — all these and thousands of oth- 
ers have poured into the ear, but the sound of that voice 
heard twenty years ago lingered there still. 

Still another wonder is the power of the mind to imagine. 
It can create a world that is ideal, and people it with persons 
and things that have only an imaginary existence. Literature 
gives us examples of this. Take the writings of Dean Swift. 
What a strange power, by which he conceived himself to be in 
a land where the people were less than a child's little finger, 
and the heaviest instruments less than the finest cambric 
needle. What a strange power by which he could next trans- 
port himself to the land of Brobdingnag, where the men were 
taller than our trees, and the grain heavier than our forests, 
and where the author comes near losing his life by drowning 
in a cream pitcher. Or take the speculative romances of Vol- 
taire, in which he conceives a people whose term of life was 
seven times seven hundred years, and yet the philosophers of 
that land were always complaining of want of time. Many a 



41 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

man is siclt because he thinks he is. Many a man starves be- 
fore he gets to the point where he never starves. Many a 
man is made happy or miserable by imagination. An ancient 
chronicle tells of a certain king who every night dreamed that 
he was a poor laboring man. His days were wretched because 
of the thought of these dreams. Near by the palace lived a 
poor man who dreamed every night that he was a king, and 
he was happy because his dreams took away the bitterness of 
his daily toil. And the wise men of that day could not deter- 
mine whether these dreams brought the most misery to the 
king or the most pleasure to the peasant. 

We have the strange power of reason — a power which ena- 
bles us to weigh the planets and measure their distance — a 
power by which thought is thrown in the forms of logic, and 
we shut ourselves up to the necessity of conclusions. Not 
only is this in our minds, but also something that seems to 
tell us that mind is an entity — a fact of itself — something 
in its nature that enables us to go to a man in another coun- 
try, and propose certain things to him, confident that he will 
see them just as we see them. 

Such ; ro some of the marvelous faculties that raise man 
above the brute creation. We concede to the animal memory 
and instinct, but only to man is given the power of a pro- 
gressive and improvable reason. The birds of our day sing 
the same songs that were warbled in the garden of Eden. But 
man, with his power of speech, may write new songs every 
day. Not only have we language, but we have the printing 
press, by which we can register thought, so that one genera- 
tion can begin where another left off. 



Origin and Antiquity of Our Race. 45 

But is there not something more to be said ? Is there not 
something in man diflfering not only in degree, but in quality? 
What is this golden over-soul that we call the spirit — that makes 
the thought of God possible — by which we stand in the image 
of God — which makes the divine real, and so impels us to 
do that which is right and restrains us from that which is 
wrong ? It is this, my friends, that gives to man the power 
of surmounting the body ; it is this that gives him the crown 
and glory of his being — that he is in the image of God. 
Something within him enables him to look outward and up- 
ward, and God answers back ; something that reaches out into 
infinity and up to God. It is this, above all, which makes 
man the lord of this planet, standing with his feet on the 
ground, his form upright, his brow upturned, his glance 
heavenward, his intellect unfolded to truth, his heart and mind 
open to God ; that being in whom God and material things 
come together in conscious relation. Ages ago, looking up 
through the clear sky of the eastern world, David said : "When 
I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and 
the stars, which thou hast ordained, what is man, that thou 
art mindful of him? and the sou of man, that thou visitest 
him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, 
and hast crowned him with glory and honor." And from that 
day to this, gazing at the same sky, not only with the naturtJ 
eye, but with the rude telescope of Galileo and the long glass 
of Herschel, man has looked into the wider and deeper heav- 
ens, and the question comes back, what is man ? 

Oh ! mighty worlds, revolving in space ! You are old and 
we are young ; you plow on in your restless course through 



4:6 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

the resisting ether ; you have millions of years behind you, 
and we are only of yesterday ; you have boundless strength, 
and we are weak and frail — the consumptive hacks away his 
life with his cough, and our strength is as a broken reed. 
But oh ! mighty worlds above us ! we know you ; do not you 
know us ? We tell your names ; do you call ours ? We look 
up to the heavens, and measure your orbits, and note the 
time when you appear and disappear ; do you know our com- 
ing and our going ? Oh ! grand old Sun ! it is said there are 
storms on thy bosom that would wrap our world as a pebble is 
rolled over by the mighty deep. But there is a mightier 
storm in the human breast. Do you know the infant's smile, 
the maiden's blush, the mother's joy, the mourner's tear ? 
Oh, no ! It is given to man alone to know — to hope, to love, 
to weep — to man only to be forever. Go then, my friends, 
from this temple of worship, and, planting your feet on God's 
great earth, say, *'I am a man — I stand." Put your hand 
upon your brow, and say, "I am a man — I think." Raise 
your eyes to heaven and say, "I am a man — I love." And go 
and 6e a man Adorn manhood, adorn womanhood. Honor 
your high being by living by a higher law, by a higher truth. 
Let the higher truth be your daily guide. Go, and be now 
all that you would be in the ages to come. 



IV. 



THE PROBLEM OF EVIL. 



Let no man say when lie is tempted, I am tempted of God : for God 
cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man: but every 
man is tempted , when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. 
Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin ; and sin, when it 
is finished, bringeth forth death. — James, i, 13-15. 



FOLLOWING the Oriental method, we began these dis- 
courses with thoughts and speculations upon the First 
Cause, or God; from this we traveled outward to His 
works, as revealed in the universe ; and we are enabled now, 
in imagination, to stand back of what appears, and in some 
sense to foUow the moving of the Infinite Mind as it moves 
outward, taking shape in the material world. Thus we may, 
as it were, stand back of the heavens and the earth, and follow 
in imagination the thought of an all-wise power as it is 
unfolded in the vast system of worlds. We may follow the 
divine thought as it takes shape in our own little world — in 
the tree-thought, in the mountain-thought, in the river- 
thought, in the plant-thought, in the flower-thought, and, 
finally, in its highest realization, the man-thought. For in 
our conception of these things we have gone upon the suppo- 
sition that the thought of God is back of all that appears. 



48 The Origin (md Destmv of Man. 

Now, iu our observations of the great sjstem of worlds, w© 
have been imiDressed with the idea of the presence of law, the 
presence of order. We have found everything falling into its 
place and filling its place. Thus, in the system cf worlds, 
each stems naturally to have taken its place, and to hold it 
without effort or jur. And the divine law unfolds along these 
lines till the worlds are finished. Thus we have seen life ris- 
ing from the simplest forms in the vegetable world to the 
highest, and from the simplest forms in the animal kingdom 
to the highest. And we come now to consider what seems an 
anomaly. Finding order everywhere else apparent, in the 
vegetable and the lower animal realms, it is only when we 
come to man, the highest in the scale of being, that we find 
the first appearance of disorder. Everything outside of man 
in the material world is in its place, and conforms to the law 
of its being. Every plant, every blade of grass, every tree, 
every bird, every fish, every animal, submits readily and 
naturally to this law. But when we come to man, the crown- 
ing work of creation, we are met with the strange fact of 
disorder. For when you reflect, that man is the only being 
that seems to violate the law of his nature ; that he is the 
only being who does violence to his body ; that he is the only 
one that becomes intoxicated, the only one that is unjust, the 
only one that is oppressive — when we reflect upon this, we 
approach a question that has greatly puzzled the thinking 
world. How is it that order obtains throughout nature all 
the way up to man, but when the highest is reached, there 
disorder appears? And this brings us to the subject of thifl 
evening's meditations — the Problem of Evil. 



The Problem of Evil 49 

There have been various theories held by thinking men iu 
the past, and there are still in the present, in reference to the 
origin of evil. How came it here '? I will mention first; the 
Manichsean theory, so named by Manes, having its origin 
toward the close of the third century. The author of this 
theory being a Persian, the theory itself is a strange com- 
mingling of Persian philosophy and the Christian religion. 
The theory is substantially a dualism, taking its conception 
possibly from the old Egyptian thought that light was good 
and darkness evil. It holds that v»'hat we call light is in itself 
good, and what we call darkness is in itself evil ; that these 
two principles have been engaged in a struggle, light pro- 
ducing the spirit of good, and darkness producing matter, or 
evil ; and that, in the conflict between these two principles, 
the good principle gained the supremacy, and yet the evil 
principle, or darkness, held the field in material things; and 
that this evil principle has ever been fighting the good. 
Simplifying the statement, the doctrine teaches that matter 
is eternal, and is essentially evil ; that God, or the good, has 
done the best that was possible, but has not been able to 
overcome the evil that is in matter, and that the spirit of 
man, being incarcerated in matter, has to share in the evil 
that belongs to matter. Somewhat allied to this belief was 
that of the Ascetics of old, who inflicted punishment on their 
own bodies to exterminate the evil within themselves, believ- 
ing that it existed in that portion of their nature which was 
material. 

There is another theory to account for the origin of evil, 
called the Pre-existent theory, cropping out in the writtings of 



50 TJie Origin and Destiny of Man, 

Plato, aud philosophers even back of Plato. It has found, in 
our own day and in our own State, its ablest advocate in Dr. 
Edward Beecher, lately of Galesburg. From his struggles 
over the fact of evil being in the world, taking a high view 
of the doctrine of human depravity and of the doctrine of 
future punishment, he was unable to reconcile these two facts 
with the goodness of God. And he tells us in his book that 
he was wandering on the verge of darkness and despair, when 
the happy conception of a Pre-existent state flashed upon his 
mind, and was welcomed as the dawn of the day after the 
long night. The theory is that all souls that have lived in 
bodies in this world had a Pre-existent state. In that state 
they were pure and holy. In that state they began their pro- 
bation with an even start. But finally, from innate or willful 
perversity or depravity, they fell, and having fallen as spirits 
they are sent into this world and placed in human bodies for 
the purpose of redemption. In short, this theory looks upon 
this world as a kind of hospital for the universe, where all its 
fallen spirits are sent for treatment. There are two difficulties 
about this theory. In the first place, it is entirely hypotheti- 
cal. We have no proof of a Pre-existent state. None of us 
remember having been in another world. But even if we 
accept it as true, we are no nearer the solution of the problem 
w© are considering. It does not account for the origin of evil. 
It only pushes it back — puts it in some other world instead of 
on our own planet. 

There is another theory, called the theory of the utiUty of 
evil. This holds that evil is only another form of good, or, if 
not a form of good, as something that stands in the place of 



The Problem of Evil, 61 

certain blessings. Tlie theory teaches that, had it not been 
for evil, the Divine Being would not have descended to earth 
and disclosed His love ; that to the existence of evil we owe 
man's redemption. I will not pause to controvert this posi- 
tion long, but it seemi to me to be a poor plight for any the- 
ory to be in, when it has to assume evil as a condition of good, 
and when it has to make a divine disclosure depend upon 
some dark background of sin. What should we think of a 
theory which held that a child must be disobedient and false 
before it can know a mother's love ? So far from this the- 
ory being true, sin is wholly obscuring in its effects. * This 
same doctrine of utility goes further, maintaining that good 
is revealed to us by contrast. As an example, it is affirmed 
that, if there were no such thing as falsehood, we would not 
have such a striking conception of truth ; and the theory, 
carried out, would make it profitable to have a saloon along- 
side of every home — a jail, a penitentiary and a house for 
the fallen by the side of every church, for then we should 
have the good of the home and the church revealed to us by 
contrast. 

There is still another theory, which I advance as the one by 
which I shall stand, and that is the theory that evil is the 
result of the abuse of moral freedom. That we may under- 
stand ourselves upon this subject, it seems important for a 
time to consider the question of freedom in itself. And it is 
well to cast out some of the uncertain elements in the contro- 
versy — to oast oat some quantities that have no real part in 
it ; in other words, to eliminate some of the grounds that 
have been claimed for freedom that are not tenable. It is 



52 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

well that we retreat into narrow quarters at the outset. There 
are many things about which we have no liberty at all. We have 
no choice whether we are in the world or not. We have no 
choice as to ancestry, as to social position, as to the country 
we are born in. We have no choice as to inherited mental 
traits, or as to moral traits. We may as well at once give 
these all over. We have no choice in these conditions. Com- 
ing still nearer, and touching upon our individuality, we will 
have to yield certain points, and say liberty is not found in 
these. I find no freedom in intellect or in the senses. I have 
no choice between believing and not believing, as a thing 
appears to me. There is no mental condition possible 
by which I can doubt the presence of these flowers 
on my desk. I have to believe they are here. I have no 
mental choice as to believing certain things as to these flowers. 
I have to believe that some are red and others are white. I 
have to believe that they are beautiful, and that they emit 
certain odors. Thus you see that, in certain important re- 
spects, there is no liberty in intellect. A man has to believe 
what he thinks is true ; and if we could all realize this, we 
should have vastly more charity for our fellow beings. Nor 
have we any liberty in the sensibilities of our nature. If 1 
taste a thing, and it seems to me sour, I have no liberty but 
to pronounce it sour. Seeing the beauty and inhaling the 
fragrance of these flowers, I have no choi ce but to pronounce 
them beautiful and fragrant. 

But let us look a little further, and see if there is not some- 
thing about us that we may truly call a voluntary power, and 
if we do not have a power of choosing, of moving or not mov- 



The Problem of Evil 53 

ing in certain directions, and if this power does not come into 
play in reference to moral questions as well as others. As an 
example, I have the power to pick up this vase of flowers and 
dash it to the floor. Now if it be proved as well that I have 
the liberty to violate or not to violate the law of right, then 
we reach the moral question on which the argument turns, 
which is whether we have this self-determining power. If we 
have, we have responsibility ; if we have, we are upon the 
threshold of solving the problem of evil. If we have not, 
then, wherever evil or sin may be, it cannot be laid at man's 
door ; he is only a machine. Let us determine now what we 
mean when we speak of liberty ; and here I have to differ 
from some of the schools of the present century. The defini- 
tion given of liberty by some is the power to do as you please. 
This is very beautiful so long as we do not jilease to do what 
we cannot. But when you run it back, it only means that you 
can do as you please, but that you can only " please " to do 
in a certain way. Now we hold that liberty carries with it 
more than this ; that man has power over his pleasing, over 
his choosing, power to, or from ; that he is the determiner, 
and not the determined. And we claim still further, that 
there is something within us that is divine ; something that 
has the power of moving contrary to circumstances, of sur- 
mounting conditions, of rising in its immortal supremacy to 
determine certain courses of conduct. We may grant that 
certain ages have a tendency to produe peculiar types of char- 
acter. A period of war is favorable to the production of 
patriots ; a period when beauty is the universal theme will 
develop its artists and its poets. Circumstances, too, may 



5^ The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

have great weight in controlling the destiny of individuals. A 
child surrounded by bad influences has great difficulty in ris- 
ing out of them. But I claim for the God-given spirit of 
man that it has the power to rise above evil circumstances ; 
that it has the power to control conditions. It is the only 
doctrine that is safe in its broadest sense to teach the young. 
You teach that man is the creature of circumstances, and if 
he lives in a listless age he will be listless, and if in a vicious 
age he will be vicious. You teach the people that they must 
simply yield themselves to the influences around them and be 
borne along by the cun-ent, and you destroy the greatest mo- 
tive and inspiration to self-helpfulness. Certainly, if man be 
responsible, he must have power — power to do, power not to 
do. And here I think we approach the best answer that can 
be given to this problem of evil. Within the possibilities of 
truth and general goodness, man may live up to these attri- 
butes, and be virtuous and holy; or he may turn aside and fall. 
If I am correct in my statements thus fai', it does not meet 
the argument to say that God permitted evil in this world. If 
my premises are right, God could not prevent evil from ori- 
ginating and existing here. It is not in the power of Om- 
nipotence to make a being free and at the same time not free. 
God could not prevent evil from coming into this world after 
giving man the power to choose between good and evil. I 
stand squarely by the proposition that having made man free, 
He could not prevent man from falling unless He destroyed 
the nature of man. He may create the vast worlds about 
us, and station them in their places ; He may create these 
lovely flowers to gratify our sense of the beautiful ; He may 



The Problem of Evil. 55 

caase great forests to wave, and mighty rivers to flow on to 
their home in the great deep — but when He makes a free be- 
ing, that being must be free. If He puts His hand on that 
being, and says he shall not do wrong, He unmakes him ; the 
being ceases to be free, and ceasing to be free, he ceases to be 
a man. This is the clearest solution I can give of the prob- 
lem of evil. It is the abuse of moral freedom. 

We may accompany these thoughts with some reflections on 
man*s first appearance — the first appearance of our Adamic 
race. And here we are met by that strange and beautiful story 
of the garden of Eden, and of the appearance of Adam and 
Eve, and the strange account of their fall. What are we to 
make of this in modern thought and language ? This early 
story may be a kind of poem, a song sung to ihe childhood 
of our race. It abounds in symbolism, and may be interpret- 
ed as a sort of teaching by means of object lessons. I think 
it is Dr. Bushnellj one of the clearest thinkers of this or any 
age, who says, in substauce, that in that time, when man 
had but little power to think, or to sludy cause and effect, 
except by means of objective lessons, it may easily faU out 
that the story of the garden of Eden would take this shape : 
Law would be represented by the tree ; the violation of law, 
or rather the precepts of law, by its fruit ; evil, or tempta- 
tion, would be represented in the form of the serpent. I 
suggest this intertH^etation to you. Or, if you choose, you 
may take the same view that I used to. You may look at the 
garden of Eden as like a garden of our time, and regard the 
tempter as a literal serpent. Dr. Adam Clarke, of our own 
church, makes the serpent an ouraug-outang ; and after that, 



50 Tlie Origin and Destiny of Man. 

we are at liberty to make it anything we choose. I am dis- 
posed to put some such construction on it as Dr. Bushnell 
does, and to think that the law under which Adam and Eve 
were placed was symbolized by the tree, and that the tempta- 
tion took another thought, the idea of the serpent. 

Or you may take the theory of Dr. James Freeman Clarke, 
of Boston, one of the most candid, liberal and scholarly 
writers of our time. He suggests that the four actors in the 
drama are found within man himself. The strong or mascu- 
line power within us is Adam ; the principle of gentleness and 
sympathy, the soul principle, is Eve ; the human appetites or 
passions are represented by the serpent, or temptation. He 
takes conscience, that within us which recognizes and speaks 
to God, and makes it the voice of God heard in the garden. 
We cannot say which of these interpretations gathers to itself 
the whole truth. Our first parents, while they were pure, 
could not in the nature of things be holy in an active sense of 
the term. All that God could do would be to give them the 
conditions of this. The fact of becoming actively holy — 
that was something that fell to their share, and was not the 
work of God. It is instructive to notice that their fall came 
by the way of the intellect, and the desires, and the passions. 
Temptation was arc used by their appetites or desires, and 
they yielded and fell. 

In relation to the Adamic transgression, I must contend 
against the doctrine that we inherit guilt because there was sin 
in the first pair. We may inherit a fallen nature, and may 
endure great sufi'ering on that account. We are so related to 
our ancestors that our life flows down to us through them. 



The Problem of Evil. 57 

Whatever of violence they have done to their natures will be 
visited upon us. And as they have brought upon us this 
physical weakness, this mental and spiritual weakness, it is in 
the law of nature that we, their descendants, should be born 
into this world in their image. And thus it is said that while 
Adam was made in the image of God, he begot a son in his 
own likeness. Now the question comes up as to how far we 
are depraved and to what extent must we share the responsi- 
bility of those from whom we have descended ? There can 
be no blame laid at my door, or at your door, that we belong 
to a fallen race. The man who sins, and he only, is a sinner. 
We might just as well blame the child who had been cursed 
with the depraved appetite of a drunken father. The churches 
probably have gone too far in both directions. For us to state 
that the human family is in no sense depraved, is not a full 
statement of the cace ; it does not fill out the measure of 
human experience. We are diseased — we are fallen ; but it 
is as great a mistake to make depravity such a preponderating 
force in human life as to say that there is no good in man ; 
that he is wholly prostrate, wholly inclined to evil ; that, like 
a rotten stick, there is no life at all in him. I find our de- 
pravity to bo in this, that conscience is overcome by the flesh, 
by appetite and passion, but it is still true to the right, but 
has not power to rule. Our intellects are clouded and our 
bodies enfeebled because of the sins of our ancestors. We 
need not only education, but salvation. As to the fact of sin 
in itself, I cannot believe that man will be punished for be- 
longing to a fallen race. You and I cannot be deemed guilty 
for being that which it was not in our power not to be. Our 



58 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

guilt will be in not using the po wer we have for good, and in 
rejecting the offer of help, the gift of God in His Son. 

In a sense, we all began, or are beginning, in some garden 
of Eden. There was a time in childhood days when we came 
to God clothed in the garb of innocence. There was a time 
when the consciousness of evil first smote upon our hearts. 
There was a time when the voice of God spake unto us and 
said, "Where art thou ?" And there was a time when we 
seemed to hide ourselves from God, when the flaming sword 
seemed raised above us. But I am glad for you and for me 
that if we had our trial and our fall, there is a Bethlehem, a 
manger, a Gethsemane and a Calvary ; that out of this world 
of sin we may ascend to realms of purity and dwell with God ; 
that out of this world of sorrow and death we may mount the 
shining way, and live forever in His presence. Thus I have 
tried, in the heated atmosphere of this crowded room, to go 
over the troubled question of the origin of evil. It is inward, 
and your duty and mine is to see that we do not add to that 
evil ; that we stand strong in the presence of temptation ; that 
we exemplify strength of character ; that we give no impulse 
to sin that shall go down to those who shall coma after us ; and 
to send every possible impulse of good down to the genera- 
tions yet unborn. 



V. 



THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD. 



For unto ns a child is born, unto us a son is given : and the govern- 
ment shall be upon his shoulder : and his name shall be called Won- 
derful, Coimsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The 
Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there 
shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to 
order it, and to estabhsh it with judgment and with justice from hence- 
forth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. — 
Isaiah, ix, 7-8. 

To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, 
not imputing their trespasses unto them ; and hath committed unto us 
the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, 
as though God did beseech you by us : we pray you in Christ's stead, 
be ye reconciled to God. — Second Corinthians, v, 19-20. 

FROM the weariness and over-work of this material, 
money-loving age, comes up a demand for a light, fasci- 
nating, restful literature, and for easy and sensational 
sermonizing. I am convinced, however, that the needs of 
the age are for more tho rough, patient and persistent study. 
for deeper and profounder convictions on the questions of 
truth and morality. I am glad that you have fallen in with 
my own lines of thinking on this subject, and are so patiently 
and continuously listening to these discourses, which must, in 
the nature of the case, be something of a tax upon the think- 
ing powers. I come to-night to speak to you upon the 



60 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

Government of God. Everywhere in the material world we 
find scientists discussing questions of law — telling us that the 
domain of law is all-inclusive— that it binds alike the atom 
and the universe. And everywhere in the Bible we find the 
writers discussing the other part of the subject — talking of 
questions that belong to the moral realm — speaking of moral 
law, or the government of God. Now what are we to think 
of these things — of this reign of law in material things — 
of this presence of law in the moral world "? I suppose that 
what we call the laws of the material world are simply the 
expressions of the Divine "Will in reference to material things. 
When God has imposed a law of gravity, or the law of the 
vital affinities, or any other law of the natural world, it is 
simply an expression of the Divine Mind how these things 
should act. And, therefore, when we speak of moral law, we 
are only speaking of the same Divine Mind promulging its 
thoughts as laws that should regulate living and being and 
acting — laws that should prescribe the conduct of a free 
being. I think, when we come to reflect on this, and put the 
one over against the other, we will be able to trace the analo- 
gies between them, and to see that the Divine "Will is not 
limited in its sway, but is equally present, though not equally 
effective, everywhere. 

Imagine, if you can, a state of society where the law of 
right would be supreme, where there would be no need of 
organized or constituted government; and, if it is possible, 
conceive a community of free beings so incorporating the 
love of truth and justice into their very natures that through 
all their life they yield a cheerful and willing obedience to 



The Government of Ood. 61 

the law of right, -without any such thing as organized govern- 
ment. Possibly the nearest illustration we can get of such a 
state of society may be found in the example of a family, 
founded in love and living in love, where the law of right and 
duty is supreme. Such a family would move on in its sweet 
life if every statute were stricken from the books. The law 
of love rules them. They live under that law. Each member 
of the family is a law unto himself. I think it is possible to 
conceive that back of what we call instituted government is 
the principle of right, and that but for this principle of right 
it would not be possible for the law itseK to exist. As an 
illustration of this again, take the constitution, the govern- 
ment and laws of this country. The principles underlying 
them are back of and independent of them. They were not 
created by the organization of the government. They them- 
selves created the government. Thus, if all our statutes 
guaranteeing Uberty were stricken down, the principle of 
hberty would still be in existence. If all the statutes in 
reference to honesty and justice and truth were stricken from 
the books, or even from this Book of Books, the principles 
themselves would still remain. 

I think it important that the young have their attention 
drawn to this fact that law is not necessarily an arbitrary 
thing. What we call right is something that exists back of 
the enactments of law, and only seeks to express itself 
through them. It is something that seems to have an exist- 
ence in the nature of things, and as such it seems to be 
necessary. We must stand in certain relations to the Author 
of our being. Out of these relations arise certain obliga- 



62 The Origin and Destiny of Man, 

tions. We cannot exist in the social relation without certain 
obligations arising out of that condition. What we call right, 
then, having its existence in the relation of things, is some- 
thing back of the law instituted to express it. 

And here I deem it not irreverent to ask some questions in 
reference to the government of God. I think it not irrev- 
erent for us to look the whole subject squarely in the face, 
and see whether the government of God, which challenges our 
acceptance and loyalty, is itself in harmony with everlasting 
truth and right. For the principle of right works both ways. 
It obligates God as well as man. It obligates God infinitely 
more than it obligates man, just in the ratio that God is 
infinitely greater than man. I think it not irreverent to say 
that were it possible for the Infinite Being to violate the 
everlasting law of right. He would be not only the most 
infinite sinner in the universe, but the most infinite sufferer. 
Some may think this is irreverent. I claim to have reverence 
for the Supreme One, reverence for truth, reverence for 
right. But there comes a time in humaa thought when we 
may demand answers to these questions. God challenges us 
to the inquiry by Ezekiel. Away back in the spring-time of 
our race, God said through him : "Are not my ways equal ? 
Are not your ways unequal?" God wanted the principles 
of His government to be judged by the same rules that were 
applied to all questions of right. Through Isaiah He invited 
the people to come and reason on these questions, and our 
Saviour has commanded us to judge for ourselves and see 
if the great moral principles He announced are not foui^ded 
in truth and righteousness. 



The Government of God. ^ 

There may be a time in despotic ages when the thought of 
a king is so great that the people will simply bow down under 
it, and there wiU be unquestioning submission to the edicts 
of kingly government. But as inteUigence spreads, and the 
people become in a sense free, they ask whether the law is just 
— whether the king is right, and they begin to call the gov- 
ernment to account and to inquire into its acts. And there 
may be a time in the life of individuals when the thought of 
God is so supreme that they would think it irreverent to ask 
if these things are true, if these things required are right. 
And there has been a large school of theology in the world, 
extending over hundreds of years, that has taught and preached 
the doctrine of the absolute slavery of the human mind, 
the absolute subjection of human reason. This school has 
taught a religion that exalts God and debases man ; it makes 
man a worm for the Almighty to spit upon and trample in the 
dust. I protest against such doctrines as needlessly humiliat- 
ing and degrading to man and as dishonoring to God. I hold 
that we have rights, that this question is not wholly a one- 
sided question. There are things due from the Almighty 
Ruler of this universe to mankind, just as there are things 
due from mankind back to the Ruler of this universe. And I 
am very free to say to you that if I believed that the Bible 
taught certain things as some schools have insisted, I would 
stand to my reason and moral convictions, and step away from 
that Bible. If I believed it made out the Supreme Being to 
be what some systems teach, I confess to you that in my heart 
I never could love Him. In my inner heart, I can only detest 
tyranny. The moment you charge anything to the Almighty 



64 TJie Origin and Destiny of Man. 

that is wrong, that is cruel, that is in violation of the everlast- 
ing principles of right, that moment you negate the thought 
of God ; you make Him an impossible being. The moment 
we take the Divine out of the pale of mercy and justice, we 
make the thought of a loving and all-wise Father impossible. 
And hence I feel that I would honor human reason and honor 
God in thus standing up for the righteousness of His law, and 
vindicating the glory of His character. He does nothing that 
by any possibility can be construed to be wrong. He must 
stand forever in infinite truth and goodness. Suppose, my 
friends, some one should come to you and say, "Have you 
heard that terrible story about your father ?" " No ; what is 
it?" "Why, he concluded that three babes at home were 
too many, and took a couple of them and drowned them — not 
that he thought it right, but it pleased him to do so." What 
would be your duty in that case? To say, "I guess ifc is 
right, if father did it ? " Or would it not be your duty as a 
good son, who defends his father when absent, to say, " There 
is some mistake about this ; my father would not do that — he 
cowZci? not do such a thing " ? So I feel it is honoring God 
and humanity, when some one comes along saying that with- 
out any reason, but for His own glory, the Almighty Father 
has determined to give a certain part of His children over to 
endless misery, to say, " My Father cannot do that ; He did 
not do it ; it is impossible that He should do it. " I am not sur- 
prised that the world is full of infidelity when I come to think 
of the things that have been put forth as God's truth, and 
which men, on pain of heresy, have been compelled to accept. 
And the sooner we look over this field, and see that God is 



The Government of God, 65 

truth and right, and that His government is founded in truth 
and righteousness forever, the better it will be for mankind. 
Whatever systems have to fall, let God's truth stand, and His 
character be vindicated. 

As stated in our last discourse, the creation of a free being 
involved the liability to wrong, the liability to sin. And, in 
the case of our world, that which was potential has become 
actual. Not only Adam and Eve fell, but every human being 
has fallen since. Let us look at the government of God in 
the light of this fact. Let us inquire, in the first place, if we 
can throw ourselves back in imagination into such a world, 
what would be the effect of the first introduction of wrong 
among a pure and sinless people. Let us imagine a people 
who lived simply under a law of right. Wliat would be the 
effect if some one broke that law ? We can hardly realize 
what we are talking about here, from the fact that we have 
become so accustomed to sin in our world that we scarcely 
notice its presence. It is only the great sins that arouse our 
attention. The ordinary failings of humanity are every-day 
occurrences. What would be the startling effect in a family 
that had never known a wrong act or an unkind word — what 
would be the effect if one of its members should turn around 
and violate the law of love and right under which it has been 
living ? It would first produce terror and disorder. When 
the law is overborne, there must be disorder in that home. 
What was the feeling in our land when Fort Sumter was fired 
upon ? It was that the nation was in peril. What would be 
the effect upon the one that sins under the conditions we have 
indicated ? Possibly to set up a tendency to wrong-doing ; to 
5 



66 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

perpetuate that tendency, strengthen it by habit, and hand it 
down by the law of descent. So that you can see if we were 
in a world that had never known wrong, alarm and confusion 
would run through all branches of society upon the first 
introduction of sin. We should expect to see it repeated 
indefinitely. What would be the duty of the government, or 
of the father of the family, under such circumstances? In 
either case the highest authority should come forth and make 
its power felt both for the sinning and the unsinning. And, 
if we admit the existence of a Supreme Being ; if we admit 
the existence of His rule on earth, we must feel that when 
man fell, the Supreme Ruler would be impelled to come forth 
and set up authority, to come forth and promulge law, to 
come forth and organize government. And this is just what 
God is represented in the scriptures as doing. Our race began 
life under the law of right ; now comes the fact of disorder in 
the world ; then comes forth the Divine Law. I am making 
these remarks thus elaborately that you may see that there is 
something back of this thing of the government of God. We 
are not looking at shadows or fleeting phantoms. The law 
that the Supreme Being would promulge is the law of ever- 
lasting right. 

We know what the law is that comes to us from Mount 
Sinai. Let us see how it accords with our ideas of the good 
of humanity. There are two sets of tables in this book — one 
of which applies to man's relations to God, and the other to 
his relations with his fellow beings. The first commandment 
is : " Thou shalt have no other gods he/ore me.'* What is the 
import of this ? It rests upon the simple fact that there is 



The Government of God. 67 

but one God, It was shaped in that day when people, turn- 
ing away from the love of God, had come to set up false 
deities, and to worship the planets, birds, animals, and even 
sticks and stones. Hence arose the necessity for this first 
great commandment. It is essential to the harmony of this 
universe. Under the old pagan systems, there might be as 
many gods as the people chose to worship, but there could 
be no Supreme Being of all-commanding presence and power. 
And God placed in the archway of human thought this key- 
stone of Divine law — *' Thou shalt have no other gods before 
me." 

The second commandment is : *' Thou shalt not make unto 
thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in 
heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the 
water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to 
them, nor serve them.'' What is the reason of this? It i> 
justified by the well-known fact that man assimilates to that 
which he worships. When he bows down before images of 
wood or stone, or before any beast, he degrades himself to the 
level of that which he adores. It is only as the Supreme 
Being is supreme in human thought that the best conditions 
for human advancement are possible. I would like, as a mat- 
ter of curiosity, to see what, if such a state of facts were 
possible, would be the efi'ect of the enlightened ideas we have 
of the extent of the universe, on the religion of the ancient 
Greeks or Romans. How would they represent a being capa- 
ble of making and upholding this vast universe ? It would 
be interesting to see some one try to make an idol in our time. 
It would be impossible, with any such notion of the Deity as we 



68 The Origin and Destiny of Man, 

entertain. And God says, Do not attempt it ; you cannot do it. 

The government of God then says : *' Thou sTialt not take 
the name of the Lord thy God in vain.'^ What is the reason 
of this ? This Supreme Being must be forever hallowed in 
human thought. He must dwell in the human mind as the 
source and fountain of justice, goodness and love. And just 
as the making of an image to represent the Deity degrades 
the high ideal of the Divine One, so profaning His name 
degrades the thought of his holiness. It is spoiling the beauti- 
ful idea of divinity when you profane that name. Supreme 
love and reverence must have fled from the heart before you 
can do it. 

*^ Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,^' is the fourth 
commandment in the decalogue. You need the Sabbath as a 
day of physical rest, when man will turn from things that we 
call secular, and have a day of devotion ; when he shall forego 
his money getting and worldly scheming, and direct his 
thoughts to the contemplation of sacred things. Our Saviour, 
taMng up these commandments, says they mean supreme love 
to God. If we love that Supreme Being, we shall want no 
other ; we shall set up no false idols ; we shall not profane 
His name nor His holy day. 

Now the government of God proceeds and takes up the 
other table of laws in reference to man's relations with his 
fellow-beings. ^^ Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy 
days may be long upon the land^"* where you shall dwell. God 
instituted the family relation in the garden of Eden, and it is 
only as reverence and honor are paid by the child to the 
earthly father and mother that the stepping stone is reached 



The Government of God. 69 

by which its devotion is carried up to the Supreme. The 
gathered wisdom of the world cannot put down a better foun- 
dation-stone for human life and character than is contained in 
this commandment. Where children grow up to love and 
respect their parents, you may look for a good outcome. The 
child that can turn away from the love of a mother, the child 
that can scorn the teachings of a father — that child travels to 
a dark after-life. 

** Thou shalt not bear false witness." What is the reason 
of this ? Simply that there must be truth among men. Truth 
is the basis of confidence, and confidence is essential to the 
very structure of society. The entire social order would fall 
to pieces if you take away confidence. And that good may 
be enforced, this law of truth was established. God has 
builded every thing on that law, and it is a strange fact that 
there is nothing in the vast realm of nature that lies, but man. 
Every crystal that forms is true to the law of its nature. 
Every plant, every tree, every iron bolt, may be counted on 
with perfect confidence so far as the law that governs it is 
known. We trust our lives in the structure of this building. 
We know that the massive stones are true ; we know that the 
arches are true ; we measure the strength of the wood and the 
iron, and we know that they will not fail us. We launch a 
vessel, because we know that the waters will float her, and the 
winds will waft her to her destination. God comee to man 
and says. Be true. The Saviour of the world impressed upon 
us this same law when he said, "Let your nay be nay, and 
yoar yea yea." When you say no, mean no ; and when you 
say yes, mean yes. 



70 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

The next commandment is : *' Thou shalt not commit adul- 
tery.'^ Preserve the sanctity of home, the purity of the 
marriage vow. Do not adulterate the very source of life. 
Defile not the fountain of being. The best wisdom of man- 
kind stands by this law, and it has received the sanction of 
civilized society in all ages. 

God announces another law, and says : " Thou shalt not 
steaV* Do not take that which belongs to another. Don't 
steal by misrepresenting the value of your property in a bar- 
gain. Do not steal another man's property by running it 
down. Do not rob another man of his reputation and char- 
acter by circulating falsehoods about him. Let there be 
simple, even-handed justice among men as to property and 
reputation. 

The government of God announces another law to protect 
the sanctity of life — " Thou shalt not kill.'''* It is not in your 
power to give life, and you shall not take it. The enjoyment 
of liberty and happiness by the individual is sacred. 

Covering another phase of human experience, we have the 
command: ^^ Thou shalt not covet.^^ Do not desire that 
which is not in your possession, except to procure it in a law- 
ful way. Look not with covetous eye upon that which is 
another's. Get what you want honorably. Dig it out of the 
earth, seek for it in the sea, acquire it by industry — but do 
not give yourself up to selfish covetousness. 

I have gone over more at length than I at first intended 
some of the principles of the government of God. Do they 
not commend themselves to your calmest reason, your clearest 
judgment ? It is a grand thought that a world of free beings, 



The Government of God. 71 

with habits of sinning established, Hying under the govern- 
ment and power of a blessed God, should have given it a 
system of laws that civilized man has not been able to improve 
upon in the ages that have elapsed since they were first pro- 
claimed. And the Saviour says it is all fulfilled in just this : 
** Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as 
thyself.'* There is not a code of laws, from the Koman or 
Justinian down to this day, but what is shaped largely by 
that grand old law-giver, Moses. And there is not a moral 
philosophy that can transcend in beauty and sublimity the 
Saviour's analysis of supreme love to God and equal love to 
man. I like to stand in the presence of the subject in this 
way, for it stands by me in the moment of trial. It gives me 
strength to feel that the laws of God are a power for good, 
and that they are founded in justice and right. 

Now it would seem that the government of God would 
want some method of announcing these laws — some practical 
system of educating the people up to them. When the He- 
brew people had wandered away from their own land, when 
they had been in Egypt longer than this country has been 
discovered, had been idolaters and nearly lost in sin and cor- 
ruption, God came to them through Moses, and gave them 
not only law and commandment, but a system of worship, by 
which they might be helped to see Gol as a Spiritual Being, 
a Supreme Being. He gave them the diflferent rules in the 
old ritual worship. It was a system of religious philosophy 
taught by object lessons. He put them upon a system of 
worship and sacrifice, put them under the guidance of teachers 



72 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

and leaders and prophets, and held them separate from sur- 
rounding nations. What for ? That He might heal them 
from their idolatry. The government of God, in its practical 
carrying out, dealt with that nation of the Hebrews through 
centuries and thousands of years, till finally the lesson was so 
drilled and burned into their character that through all the 
ages that have passed the Jews have never been idolaters. 
They have become exiles from their own land ; they have 
wept by every river, and have traversed every plain and crossed 
every sea ; but they have kept the faith and fulfilled the grand 
mission proclaimed to them by Moses amid the thunders of 
Mount Sinai. 

There should be something further, it would seem. Begin- 
ning away back, there might be a dispensation of power, in 
which God would come forth as a world-builder. Then there 
would come a dispensation of love, where God would come 
out and reveal His love to man in His Son Jesus Christ, and 
then as a Holy Spirit. But should there not be something 
more than this — more than law, more than education — some- 
thing reaching the hearts of men and winning them back to 
loyalty to God ? Yes, and that man might have the thought 
of the Supreme One, not as an abstraction, not as a spirit 
in the universe, but that he might have the thought of God's 
coming to him in human conditions, looking at him through 
human eyes, God was made manifest in the flesh. I pause 
before this great and glorious truth — that the Infinite and 
Everlasting Father, that He might know human suffering and 
want, came down to our world ; that He might find us, found 
ft manger ; that He might know tempted man, went up into 



The Government of God. 73 

the mountain ; that He might know poverty, found hunger 
and thirst ; that He might know parental affection, took little 
children to His arms and blessed them ; that He might know 
our pain, He sat down by sick beds and wept by human 
graves. 

God became manifest in the flesh — becoming personal to 
man — ^but so coming to man in tenderness and love as to win 
him back. Man can look upon the Saviour, and thus look 
upon God. He is our propitiation. Take this word propi- 
tiation. What a deep meaning it has ! Suppose that you 
and I are friends, and I do you an injury. It is very easy for 
you to say, " I forgive you." But you want to save me, get 
me back where you can love me, and I can love you. In order 
to do this, you must suffer, you must sacrifice. Let your 
child fall away into sin. It is a very easy thing to forgive that 
child. But to bring it back to loyalty and love, to bring your- 
self back so that you can love it as if it never had sinned — 
this can only be done through suffering. Here we see the 
truth that is hid away in vicariousness — that God had to suf- 
fer. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. 
To a sinning world He said : " I will suffer, if need be. I wiU 
go down into your world, and let you turn me away from the 
door, while you are warmly housed. I will sleep out upon 
the great earth, while you rejoice in plenty. You shall put a 
crown of thorns upon my head, and, if need be, you may 
nail these hands to the cross, and pierce my side with the 
cruel spear, and I will pray for you all the time you are do- 
ing it ! " 

The words that most completely express the Divine Being 



74 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

are the words that God is Love. In God love is infinite, and 
such infinite love could not rest with less than infinite sacri- 
fice. Nothing less than Calvary could tell the yearning love 
of God seeking to reconcile us, to bring us back to peace and 
loyalty and life. Let me ask you to think for a moment on 
this blessed announcement : " The government shall be on 
His shoulder ; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Coun- 
sellor, The mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of 
Peace ; " that one being chosen to represent the government 
of God. "The government shall be on His shoulder." And 
there let it rest forever ; for He stands forever for right, for- 
ever for truth, for justice, for God, for humanity. God has 
sent His Son into this world to become a king of kings among 
men, and we have Him to rule over us. We will be under 
the banner of this love and this right. Will we go by our 
hands and our hearts to the work of this King ? Yes, my 
friends, His kingdom shall be forever, and its peace shall have 
no end. It is lifted up in its love and purity, and human 
hearts are coming to it. It was said, in our Saviour's day, that 
He had no place to lay His head ; but now the world is full 
of temples for His worship, and the press is full of activity 
in sending forth His word to the people in every corner of 
the earth ; and we, as ambassadors, beseech you to become 
reconciled to God. I do not ask you to join this church or 
that, to believe this creed or that ; I stand here to win souls 
to Christ ; I stand for the great principles of God on earth. 
I beseech you in Christ's name to come into His kingdom — 
live for Him, and reign forever. 



VI. 



SALVATION. 



Marvel not that I said unto ye, Ye must be born again. — John, m, 7. 

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ 
Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spmt. For the law of 
the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin 
and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through 
the flesh, God sending his own Son in the hkeness of sinful flesh, and 
for sin, condemned sin in the flesh : that the righteousness of the law 
might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the 
Spirit. — BoMANS, vni, 1-4. 

THE traveler has often to journey over long roads sim- 
ply that he may reach certain points, and the student 
has often to pursue long studies simply as a means of 
being able to reach other studies beyond. And so in the 
pursuit of truth, we must travel over its whole road as far as 
we can, and it requires no little thinking power to deal with 
many of its questions, especially as one part stands related to 
another. So we have come over what may seem a long way 
in these discourses, and have reached at length what I might 
call the heart of the subject. We have come to the point 
where you will see the relations of one part of theological 
truth to another. We mentioned in one of our discourses the 
fact of the Tripartite nature of man. We have bodies ; these 



76 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

bodies are built out of the earth, and have a life much like 
that of the lower forms of existence about us. We have men- 
tioned the fact also that we have minds; that these minds 
stand related to truth; and that there is a world of truth 
outside the mind, answering to the laws of truth as laid or 
imbedded in the mind. We have mentioned the fact, also, 
that we have about us, as another part of our being, that 
which is denominated the spiritual or Godward side of our 
nature; that which some writers have called the God- 
consciousness ; that which puts us in relations to the divine, 
brings before us the realm of conscience, and enables us to 
distinguish good from evil. I want to insist upon the accu- 
racy of this doctrine from the Biblical standpoint, for it is 
one not usually found in our works of philosophy. Take the 
various accounts of creation. We have the creation of the 
body. This is distinctly marked. Then we have the other 
distinct fact of the breathing of the divine nature into man — 
the imparting of something that comes from God. And we 
have the fact, too, of the mental activities of man, made man- 
ifest in his power to name and classify the things brought 
before him. The Apostle Paul insists upon this Tripartite 
nature of man. He speaks distinctly of the same as body, 
soul and spirit. I mention this fact thus particularly, because 
it stands related not only to what I have said, but to what 
will come after. 

I briefly alluded, also, in the discourse on Evil, to the con- 
dition of man at his creation — that is, the Adamic man, the 
spiritual man. In the light of the holy Scriptures, we stand 
in the presence of the fact that man was not only created in 



Salvation. 77 

the image of God, but stood innocent before him. And we 
mentioned the additional fact that he was put upon trial for 
the attainment of active holiness, personal virtue ; for it was 
not in the nature of things for even God to give to man an 
actively holy nature. He could give to man a nature that was 
pure, a nature that was potentially good ; but the making of 
that nature actively good must be the work of the individual. 
It would not be personal righteousness, it would not be per- 
sonal virtue, if it were something wrought out by another, or 
conferred upon us. And we have alluded to the fact that our 
first parents, in the trial, failed. The appetites and the pas- 
sions, the senses lodged in the body, proved too strong for 
that which was spiritual. The appetites went up and the 
spirit went down, and our first parents failed to establish 
themselves in active holiness. They failed to work out per- 
sonal virtue, and, failing in this, they dropped down to the 
plane of animal life, and the spirit became subordinate to the 
animal. This again establishes the relation of the present 
condition of the human family. There is in the natura of the 
case such a unity between the original family, or first pair, 
and their descendants, that we cannot do otherwise than in- 
herit their nature. If we possessed the simple fact that the 
first pair Lad fallen, our knowledge of the laws of descent 
would enable us to predict that their race would be a fallen 
race. Look at this in the light of what may be called a philo- 
sophical statement, and you will see how profound a truth is 
this doctrine of human depravity. Take our lives as we 
appear here to-night. These lives were derived from our 
parents, and their lives from their parents, and our grand- 



78 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

parents' lives were derived from their parents, and so on ; so 
that to-night we have within us the life of hundreds and 
thousands of years ago. There is flowing through your veins 
and through mine the blood of a thousand years ago, the 
blood of five thousand years ago. There has been no time in 
the course of these centuries when the stream of life has 
dropped down. It has flowed steadily and continuously 
through these earthen vessels. This grand law of inheritance 
is a fact of great possible good — a liability to possible mis- 
fortune. There is not only a transmission of actual nature, 
but there is a transmission of habits and principles. Take 
God's policy in educating the Jewish race, and see how the 
great doctrine of the unity of God was wrought into that fam- 
ily, and how it has stood there through all the ages. We 
stand then in the presence of two great facts : that we are 
related to the fortunes of the past, and that in our natures 
we have a three-fold being. 

Let us take up life, as it appears in the light of these two 
facts, and examine it. Childhood has its body-life ; the body 
grows. It has mind-life. As mind-life, it develops till it 
reaches spirit-life, and there it stands related to God and 
goodness. But being in the line of those who have fallen 
through the appetites and passions, we have this strange fact 
occurring in the childhood of our race : In the first few years 
the sense of truth and right seems, if anything, stronger than 
the body or the mind. But watch the life of any child that is 
a child, — it may not be the case with the ideal fairies of the 
Sunday school books, who never live to be over eight or ten 
years old, — but take a child made of ordinary flesh and 



Salvation. 79 

blood, and you don'fc go very far before the body -life begins 
to get stronger than the soul-life and to assert a mastery over 
the conscience. The problem is to get the heart on the right 
side. It is right enough to begin with, so far as purity and 
innocence are concerned ; but some how it comes to pass with 
every one of us that we are not only fallen beings, but we fall 
ourselves. We come out of the innocence of infancy. The 
appetites and senses get the mastery over the spirit, and man, 
who should be a spiritual being, and walk with this fair 
crown upon his brow, finds himself down here in bondage. 

The divine administration, dealing with beings that in the 
nature of the case must be free, and that have this three-fold 
nature about them, has also to deal with fallen beings. The 
government of God comes to us, and taking hold of these 
facts, seeks man's recovery, seeks the prevention of evil and 
the promotion of good. How does it proceed ? It seeks to 
give man, as it were, a period of irresponsible life, a trial, 
where he stands under the shadow and help of others. In 
other words, it provides that we come into this world in the 
family relation, under the sanctity of home, under the guar- 
dianship of tenderest love; and that we have a number of 
years when we are not responsible, but under the care of 
those who are made, in a sense, responsible for us. I do not 
know whether you clearly see this point, but it seems to me 
there is in it something worthy of great attention — that our 
race should have the beginning of its perilous course in child- 
hood; that we have a kind of irresponsible period during 
which we are not held accountable, but are put under instruc- 
tion and guidance — a period in which we aro gradually 



80 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

taught experience in the affairs of life, and exercised on the 
questions of truth and right that may arise. And that the 
divine administration may help parents, there is provided the 
beautiful and sacred ordinance of baptism for children — the 
consecration of our children to God. Not that I suppose this 
baptism works any change upon our children ; not that I sup- 
pose the old right of circumcision was a preventive against 
evil. But it is one of those things in which the parents act 
for the child; bringing the child to God and acting in its 
place ; putting the child over on the side of God, and starting 
it on the line of a divine education. Under this thought of 
baptism the child looks for guidance to our experience as 
parents, and for protection against the sins and temptations 
about us. It seems to me that the least we can do for our 
children is to endeavor in some way to bring them to God, to 
act for them, to stand in their stead ; and not, as some say, 
wait and let the child grow up, and let it decide for itself 
whether it wants to be religious or not. We do not wait and 
let children choose whether they will be ignorant or not. Our 
first thought is to see that the mind is carefully instructed. 
Why should not the heart be also ? So it is enjoined upon us 
that in helping our race we take our children, and put th^m 
over on the Lord's side. 

Now, what does the divine administration do further ? Ad- 
mitting the fact that all that may be done for children is done, 
still there is the fallen nature about us. The divine adminis- 
tration comes to us with the law and commandments. I elab- 
orated these at some length last Sunday night. They are the 
rule of life, telling us what we should not do and what we 



Salvation. 81 

should do. What does it seek to do by this ? As we are fallen 
beings, the law and commandments are placed by the side of 
our lives, so that we may see wherein we have failed to do 
right. There must be something which is straight before you 
can detect that which varies from a straight line. So the 
commandments of God are put alongside of our lives as a 
rule, that we may know wherein we have failed to live up t© 
that rule. They require us to do certain things. If we have 
not done these things, we are convicted of sin. They forbid 
us doing certain other things. If we have transgressed these 
commandments, the commandments convict us of sin. God 
not only seeks to enable us to distinguish the right from the 
wrong — he wants to reach our hearts, and bring us back from 
our wandering, sinning and fallen state, back to the law of 
right, back to the condition of purity. 

And here we reach the strength of the text from the book 
of Eomans : "For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus 
hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Man 
needs something more than simply the law of right. He 
wants purity to be in sympathy with that law. The first thing 
that God seeks to do with you and me, as we approach matu- 
rity, is to awaken in us a sense of our sin and our need, and 
to lead us to that state of mind we call repentance — an old 
doctrine, founded in great truth and fact. What is it ? Re- 
pentance means a knowledge of sin — a conviction of the fact 
that we have done wrong, or failed to do right. This is the 
first step in repentance. A man comes to think, and sees the 
divine law, and finds that his life is not conformed to it, and 

awakens to the consciousness that before the law he is con- 
6 



82 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

victed as a sinner. But the divine administration wants to 
go deeper than the conviction of the mind that life has not 
conformed to the rule of law. There must not only be con- 
viction of wrong, but real sorrow for the wrong. It is not 
enough that man should simply admit that his life has not 
been perfect. It is a serious thing to do wrong. It is not only 
a transgression of the statute— it is a violation of the ever- 
lasting law of principle and right ; and the man who, in the 
exercise of his voluntary powers, has committed the act, has 
disturbed the moral order, broken its harmony, and intro- 
duced discord into his own nature. God wants to work in 
his creatures sorrow for having done wrong ; and to bring 
forth this result, to work out genuine repentance in human 
hearts. He has come to us along that great law of vicarious- 
ness — that law of love. As a knowledge of sin comes from 
the law, sorrow for sin comes from the cross. It is when infi- 
nite love comes down to a manger, seeks out a Gethsemane 
and a Calvary ; it is when infinite love sends its own Son into 
the world to honor and glorify the law of right, and save an 
erring and wandering race, that the hearts of men begin to 
be touched. God would say to us through Christ : "I love 
and honor this everlasting principle of right ; I love the 
divine in your wandering and sinning natures, and by my 
suffering, by my life of anguish, I want to work in your 
hearts a state of sorrow that you have done wrong." God 
wants to touch character from within, to work a mental and 
spiritual conversion from sin, a turning away from it because 
it is wrong. 
And this is the next staga in a genuine repentance. It for- 



Salvation. 83 

sakes sin. It stops not short of ceasing to sin. It is not 
simply a struggle with sin. Many a man regrets that he is 
fallen in his appetites and passions, that he is doing wrong ; 
but the love of evil is too strong to be overcome, and he 
clings to it. Many a man is sorry for the widow and the 
orphan he has wronged and defrauded, but his sorrow is not 
deep enough to make him restore his wrongful gains, or to 
keep him from cheating or robbing in the future. Repent- 
ance has not done its work till it has brought a change in 
character, till the soul turns away from sin. I like the repent- 
ance of that square old republican, Zaccheus, who climbed a 
tree that he might see his Lord as he passed by. The sight 
of Heaven's own Son walking earth's dusty way so impressed 
him, the divine purity so loomed up before him in its beauty, 
that he said : " Lord, if I have wronged any man, I will re- 
store him four-fold, and the half of my goods I will give to 
the poor." This is genuine repentance. This is the repent- 
ance that many fail to reach in this world. Our money-loving 
age has held a struggle right here. We are sorry that we are 
.sinning, but it is too good to give up. We are sinning with 
one hand, and repenting with the other — sinning during the 
day and repenting at night. Many men have come to imagine 
that Christ is a kind of bankrupt policy, by which they can 
sin on through life, and take the benefit of this act, and slip 
out of punishment at last. There never was a more mistaken 
idea. The dying thief might obtain pardon on the cross, but 
there has got to be a paying-up in some way for the wrong 
doing. The economy of God strikes at the root of the tree. 
He wants to work in you and me such a hatred of evil that 



84: The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

we will turn away from it — to work in us such a love of right 
that we take it for its own sake. He not only wants to work 
a repentance for wrong, but a state of trust, a state of confi- 
dence. Some how in our moral darkness we are afraid, and 
God wants to reach us through the mercy of Calvary, to put 
before us the light of His goodness, so that we shall turn in 
confidence to Him. He wants us to feel that, when we repent 
of our sins, they are forgiven. In other words, God not only 
wants to work repentance, but faith. 

Now, when we repent of sin and forsake it, casting our- 
selves upon His love, the divine economy is such that man 
receives in the first place forgiveness. He is pardoned ; his 
sins are blotted out. You take the most beautiful and touch- 
ing example of this in the Scriptures. Possibly it is found 
in the parable of the prodigal son. Though the prodigal had 
wandered away, and given himself up to riotous living, still 
the memories of home and paternal love came to him in his 
hour of sadness, and he said : "I will arise and go to my 
father, tell him all, acknowledge my sins, and take the lowest 
place in his household." And, as he came, his father was 
looking out for him, and saw him while he was yet a great 
way off, and ran towards him, and threw his arms about his 
neck, kissed away his tears, ordered forth the best robe, put 
the ring on his hand, shoes on his feet, and killed for him the 
fatted calf. He took the erring son into the bosom of his 
family, and made him feel that he was forgiven and loved as 
before he had wandered away. And so, dear friends, the In- 
finite Father of us all looks out in longing for you and me to 
return ; and though our sins tower up like the mountains, and 



Salvation. 85 

are red as the crimson, if we come with our hearts broken 
with contrition, God meets us with sweet forgiyeness, puts 
His arms of love about our neck, takes away our rags, gives 
us white garments, and makes for us a royal feast. There is 
not only repentance and pardon for us — God wants to reach 
the very centre of our being, and there is provided for every 
member of our fallen race a new birth, a new Hfe, a new 
heart. Man having the law, but having yielded to appetite 
and passion, God comes now with His Holy Spirit and touches 
the God ward side of man's three-fold nature — touches the 
conscience, and communicates new life to it. I honestly be- 
lieve iu the doctrine of regeneration taught by the churches. 
There is a vital union between the Divine Spirit and the spirit 
in man. There is an actual birth ; there is a being born from 
above. This is what God wants to do with human character — 
not only blot out the sins of the past, but give man a new life, 
a new nature — a life not of the flesh, but of the spirit. 

Thus you see how the divine administration comes to man, 
working conviction, working sorrow for sin, imparting confi- 
dence to the human mind, drawing souls to Himself, pardon- 
ing sin, and then changing man's heart and making him a 
new character. The atonement is vastly more than a plan or 
method by which justice may be satisfied and the sinner set 
free. It is ai-one-ment — making man one with God, charac- 
tering him in righteousness, carrying him back into the very 
life of God. I ask you to ponder what I am saying here. I 
ask you to not only ponder it, but to put what I am saying by 
the side of consciousness, by the side of human sorrows, by 
the side of humaa wants, and see if it is not worthy of God's 



86 The Origin and Destiny of Man, 

truth. If what I have said is true, the purpose of God in 
dealing with the world is, meeting it in its mature years with 
the Bible and a revealed law, meeting it with the offer of 
pardon and a pure nature — the purpose of God is to carry 
man back as far as may be into that state where law is not 
needed, where man is a law unto himself, where man does not 
live by simply looking at the statute, but where each one so 
loves truth and right that he does the right for its own sake. 
Hence, He seeks to reach character. 

In the light of what I have said, we may see the difference 
between what I call the moral and the religious side of man. 
There seem to be two hemispheres to the God ward part of 
our being, as there are two tables of laws. One part looks 
down upon the earthly relations, and takes in the question of 
duty to man. The other looks heavenward, and takes in our 
obligations to God. And it seems that this lower part of our 
nature may be so illumined, that in almost every community 
men may be found who discharge their duty to man with 
scrupulous fidelity, and yet have very little conscience toward 
God. I know, and you know, plenty of men who seem to be 
illumined and awakened on the side of right, and yet their 
souls are dead to the Divine Spirit. I am glad to say even 
this much for this class of men, for there was a time when I 
thought it right to preach against simple, naked morality, for 
I took the ground quite commonly held that it was easier to 
win a sinning soul to God than to convert an unbeliever 
entrenched within the rigid lines of morality. But since the 
Methodist preachers' meeting in Chicago has been discussing 
the question whether the tendency of the church is to make 



Salvation. 87 

men moral, we may be glad that some men can be moral, even 
if we cannot win them to Christ. But there is something 
more needed, my friends. A man may be thoroughly awake 
in his conscience toward his neighbor, y-et, when you talk to 
him of prayer or worship, there is an utter want of sympathy. 
But there comes a time to all of us when that which is Spirit 
in God touches that which is spirit in us, and man feels 
some how that he is called to render unto God the things 
which are His. 

The truly religious man is distinguished from the moral 
man as the one that has both hemispheres of his being 
touched, and has love to God as well as to man. There are 
some strange things in human character. Sometimes a man 
who is sensitively alive towards God, is dark towards man. I 
have known cases where men seem completely possessed with 
the Divine Spirit; the coronal part of their being seemed open 
to God. And yet you never know whether they are telling the 
truth or not. You know that they will cheat, and you feel 
that your wife or daughter is not any too safe in their society. 
As examples of such abnormal development of the religious 
side of man, take the two noted Methodists in the East, who 
have just disgraced not only Methodism, but religion itself. 
If Beecher fell, he fell in that way. His conscience was 
illumined on the religious side, but obscured on that pre- 
sented to man. On the other hand, a man may be wanting 
in devotion towards God, and yet be true towards man. I 
know men who do not pray, and yet, on any question of hon- 
esty, they are absolutely above suspicion. 

The character that I plead for, the holiness I plead for, ie 



88 The Grig in and Destiny of Man. 

the conversion of botli hemispheres of our nature ; that which 
takes man from his sins and helps him into purity ; sets 
him to praying, singing, shouting, if need be ; unlocks the 
fountains of his being towards God ; makes him walk the earth, 
sweetly conscious of the life above, and with the tenderest 
regard for justice, and truth, and sympathy, and love among 
men. And this is what God is striving to do with human 
character. When we get at the inmost secret of things, we 
shall find that what is Supreme in our being is the Spirit. Be, 
then, a man in the fullest sense. Live a life of conscious love 
to God and love to man. I will not be thought boasting, for 
that is not in my heart, but I say it from firm conviction, that 
here in this heart-work is the spirit, the genius, the animus 
of the Methodist church. We may depart from it, but its 
genius is to work upon the inward forces of man's nature. 
John Wesley was so liberal a man in his theology that the 
Calvinists claim him to-day as being on their side. This is 
the spirit in which I would teach, and that T would leave as a 
sweet memory in your minds when I may have gone to other 
fields of labor — that God's great purpose is to touch our 
hearts, to win us by His love, to make us pure within, and 
send us out into the world doing good. It you have wandered 
from God, come back to His open arms. If you are strug- 
gling with sin, battling with appetite and passion, bring your 
fallen nature to Him ; ask Him to touch it, and it shall be 
whole ; ask Him to lift up your broken nature, and He will do 
it. He will give you peace, and love and joy— a home ever* 
lasting in the skies. 



VII. 

THE CHANGE WE CALL DEATH. 



For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. — Genksis, hi, 19. 
So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto 
wisdom.— Psalm xc, 12. 

THE mind of man is not satisfied with observing things 
as they appear, or to study them as they are. It seeks 
for both causation and ultimation. It wants to go back 
of even the origin of things, and then it wants to go forward 
and see to what they tend. In other words, the mind of man 
wants to know both the origin and the end. In deference to 
this desire we have thought it might be instructive and profit- 
able to go back into the deep past, and we have for a time 
been living in this past. We have stood back in the shadows 
of the star-mist, when the solid material of this globe, and 
perhaps of all the worlds in the universe, existed only as a 
nebulous mass. And in thought we have seen the impact 
communicated to this mass by the Divine Mind, and we have 
seen the systems of worlds slowly evolved and taking their 
place in the orderly heavens. We have attempted to stand, 
too, at the beginning of life, and to journey forward and 
upward with the life on our planet, till from its little begin- 
nings in the vegetable and the animal we have reached the 



90 The Origin and Destiny of Man, 

perfect forms that are about us. We have sought, too, in 
thought, to stand back in the infancy and purity of our race, 
and have contemplated the tragedy of evil ; have looked upon 
our world in its trial, in its fall, and in its sin ; and have tried 
to study the government of God over such a world, and the 
results of this government in the recovery, so far as may be, 
of the race, and the building up of character during a period 
of probation. We now, in deference to the other desire, to 
know the future, will attempt to go forward. It is the 13th 
day of the month of February, in the year 1876, and from 
this little point of time we shall essay the task of Journeying 
into the future, and seeking through all open gates and by 
all possible ways, to thread the destiny of things. For, see- 
ing these forces set in motion, and standing in the results of 
this mighty causation, we can but feel an interest in knowing 
what is to be the destiny of man, the destiny of the little 
world on which we live. 

Were we for the first time to look out upon life, and study 
its phenomena, we would find one of these to be growth ; that 
under a law ceaseless and silent there is an accretion of ele- 
ments about the germinal principle ; and that the life-forms, 
both vegetable and animal, increase in size — some with more, 
some with less rapidity, some through a longer and some 
through a shorter period. Had we never seen anything of 
the kind before, the fact would at once fix our attention, and 
we should wonder to see the plant lift up its stem and throw 
out its branches, and the branches throw out their leaves and 
flowers; or to witness the tree coming forth from its little 
germ, and steadily holding its way up in the air, till its top- 



The Change We Call Death. 91 

most branches may be a hundred feet high. Had we never 
seen such things before, these facts would be called interest- 
ing and extraordinary „ And so. were it not so common that 
it ceases to attract notice, it would be called wonderful to see 
a human being take on additional size, additional height, and 
breadth and weight, till the child has grown to be a man. If 
we still keep our minds on the phenomena of life, we find that 
another peculiarity is that the things which grow reach the 
point of maturity, where they cease to grow. This fact, also, 
is so common that it fails to awaken interest, much less sur- 
prise. But if we studied this as a new world, and, having 
ascertained the law of growth in the plant, in the animal, and 
in man, found that this process of growing stopped, we would 
be led to inquire what this means. The thought may seem 
strange the first time you reflect upon it — "I have ceased to 
grow." If we watch the life-forces beyond the point of 
growth, beyond the point where they reach maturity and 
cease to grow, we would observe another strange phenome- 
non. "We should find that there appeared in the plant, in the 
tree, and in the animal, evidences of what we call decay, pre- 
monitions of the wasting of vitality. There would come upon 
the leaf, the plant and the flower the seared edge, the change- 
ful hue ; on the topmost boughs of the great tree the stems 
would begin to wither ; on the faces of our friend-s the lines 
of time are borne, and the silver hair takes the place of the 
once golden or auburn locks. I say, had we not witnessed 
this before, it would set us to asking : What is this ? What is 
that which grew, that which held its growth in mature life, 
and now begins to go down ? And here we would stand upon 



92 The Origin and Destiny of Man, 

the threshold of the first great landmark of destiny. The 
first point in destiny is death. 

We would not be satisfied with reaching this first point. 
Our inquisitive minds will keep going back and going deeper, 
and asking why this is so — whence came death ? And now, 
as I study death both in the lower and the higher realms of 
life, I am compelled to believe that the presence of death 
here is as natural as the presence of life. It seems to be a 
part of the constitution of things, and not the result of any 
outcome of man's sinning. For I must feel, I must know, 
that death was present in our world ages before man's advent. 
We cannot turn the pages of geology without standing in the 
presence of overwhelming evidence that death was upon our 
planet long before man came. Therefore it surely cannot be 
attributed to his sinning. There was a time when the life- 
forces teemed in the marshy lowlands and in the hot, humid 
atmosphere, where the life-forms that now exist could not 
have lived for a moment. Even before man came upon the 
earth, whole species of animal life had lived their day, filled 
their mission, and passed away. One of the most incredible 
blunders that the theologians of the past have made is to 
attribute the fact of death to the sinning of man. One of the 
first books that I had to study in my theological course taught 
that the presence of storms, of volcanoes and drouths, tlie 
presence of death in any form, was to be attributed to human 
sinning. But this must all be given up. 

I look upon death in the lower orders of life not only as 
natural, but as absolutely necessary, and as being part of the 
divine plan. It is necessary in order that the old may give 



The Change We Call Death. 93 

place to the new. Take the vegetable world : unless the 
fields were cleared by the death of the old crop, there would 
, not be room for the new. Death in the animal world, also, is 
necessary on the simple ground of making room for new life. 
A curious calculation has been made as to the amount of 
room that would be required to furnish living places for dif- 
ferent forms of life had there been no death, and it is said 
that the EngKsh sparrow, which brings forth its young four 
times a year, producing four young at a time — that this little 
bird, if there were no deaths of sparrows, would in a century 
not only fill the forests, the fields and the air, but there 
would be no room for anything on the earth or in the air but 
sparrows. Take other forms of life. Suppose there had been 
no deaths among the fishes in the sea; there are not seas 
enough in ten thousand worlds like this to hold the fishes 
that would accumulate in a few centuries. Had there been no 
deaths among animals, from the beginning until this time, 
and had they gone on at a natural rate of increase, they would 
have enlarged the size of this round earth till it would extend 
beyond the orbit of Neptune. 

Now we come to look at death in reference to man, and the 
question arises : "Would he have been subject to this law of 
death, had there been no sinning ? We might be led, from 
our studies of the nature of man, to think it would be prob- 
able that he might be an exception to the general rule. He 
is an exception in many respects. He differs from every other 
product of nature in form, n feature, and in the fact of his 
mental and spiritual endowments. Were we studying this 
subject as a speculation, and had we found that the law of 



94 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

death had dominion over every form of life below man, we 
might reach the conclusion that man would be an exception 
to this law. The reasoning from causation would be in favor 
of the fact that he, having a divine nature, something related 
to God, would be an exception, and we should be justified in 
thinking that death came to the human family as a conse- 
quence of sin, or the violation of the law of his higher nature. 
Thus it is stated in our text, that, as a part of the punishment 
of Adam's transgression, he should return to the dust out of 
which he was taken. The Apostle Paul states it very strongly 
when he says that by one man sin entered into the world, and 
death by sin. 

If the mind is disposed to carry this subject a little further, 
we can only say, as a matter of speculation, that, if man had 
continued to live on that spiritual plane where he was first 
placed, he might have lived above the law of decay, above 
the law of death. But he dropped from the domain of the 
spirit down to the plane of natural forces, and he took the 
consequences of his fall. The same objection may arise in 
the minds of some as to whether there would be room in the 
earth for man, had he been above the law of death. This 
would hold good if the race had remained and multiplied on 
the earth. But there might have been some kind of exalta- 
tion, some kind of transformation or translation. He might 
have arisen and become an inhabitant of other planets. We 
cannot tell, nor is it necessary to pursue the speculation. 
We find ourselves under the dominion of death, subject to its 
laws, like the grass, and the flower, and the fish, and the bird ; 
and here we look with great interest to the method of the 



The Change We Gall Death, 95 

divine carrying out of this sentence. If we studied this ques- 
tion from the outside, we might be led to think, as when we 
look at creation from the outside, that dying would be the 
result of some mechanical process working from without. 
We might think it would require some vast machinery, like 
that required to make a world. But in the presence of God's 
laws, working from within and not from without, the taking 
down of the tabernacle of life is even easier than the building 
it up. There is no noise, no presence of any outside working 
machinery — simply the silent and intense action of the forces 
of God, which work from within. 

As we stand more immediately in the presence of the agen- 
cies by which we die, we may for a moment look upon some 
of the forms of disease. Many of these diseases seem to de- 
pend upon the elements which exist about us, as the subtle 
poison or malaria in the atmosphere, lying back of fevers 
which carry thousands away. There are the diseases which 
have become inherited in our race — the whole family of scrof- 
ulous diseases, and the wasting consumption. There are also 
the forms of sickness which are incident to childhood, and 
which are called constitutional. So that, by one cause and 
another, our race is actually in the presence of a whole army 
of diseases that hover about us — an army killing and slaying 
so remorselessly that it cuts down one-half our race before 
they are twelve miles from the cradle, and slaying one after 
another on the march of life, till only a few reach its remotest 
journey, and die at last from the wearing out of the physical 
organism. This, no doubt, was not the way it was intended. 
Even in our fallen world, were we to live up to the laws of 



96 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

nature in the fullest sense, we might all reach a mature old 
age, and die at last, as the leaf falls in the autumn, or the 
wheel stands still. 

Now the question arises as to the exact nature of this thing 
that we call dying. What is it ? In what does it consist ? 
What work does it do ? What is it that dies ? And here I 
come back again to the three-fold division of our nature. 
That which we call dying relates simply to these bodies of 
ours. It cuts o£f the relation of the mind and spirit to the 
physical organism in which they exist — leaves the body as 
dead, and the mind and spirit as undressed from the earthly 
tabernacle in which they exist. The change is a great one, 
and even a solemn one. Take the thought of dying. It is 
more than sickness. When a man is sick he suffers pain, the 
flesh wastes away, and his strength is gone. Yet there is stili 
a hold upon the vital organism, and the man may recover. 
What we call dying is more than sickness or pain. It is sick- 
ness and pain carried to the point where their work is done. 
And what a change is this — for one to lose his hold upon a 
bodily existence, to lose his hold upon all the outside world 
that the body stands related to ! What a complete severance 
is there of the relations that hold us to material things when 
one dies ! A solemn event, I say, that takes us out of this 
sense life — the eye closed, the ear forever heavy, the hands 
still, the heart pulseless, the body a mere lump of clay. Not 
only a removal out of the earthly house, but from everything 
that we have through our relations to the body. One stricken 
by death gives up forever his seat in the chair, his place at 
the table and by the fireside • he ceases to appear upon the 



The Change We Call Death, 97 

street, to stand in the bank or at the counter, to move in the 
business mart ; his voice is heard no more ; the places that 
know him shall know him no more. Strange, strange destiny, 
my friends, awaiting you and me, that we must soon put off 
these bodies, and cease to live in the senses. Soon the eye 
that weeps, the cheek of beauty, the lip of song — soon, soon 
they are all but dust. 

Not only strange, but of all the certainties of life there is 
nothing so absolutely certain as the fact of this change that 
we call dying. We may cling to life with all the intensity of 
love, we may turn every leaf, thread every winding stream, 
visit every clime, go where we will, live as we will, this strange 
thing of death follows in our footsteps. There is absolutely 
no escape. I stand with strange emotions, as I look out upon 
these hundreds of faces, as I look upon the forms of youth 
and of age, and think that when a few years have come and 
gone, we shall all have been gathered to our fathers; that other 
feet shall press these aisles, and other voices be heard in this 
pulpit ; that other people will walk these streets, stand in the 
business centres, and go out here to the city of the dead, and 
read the names on the white marble. And as they look at 
one stone, they will say : "There lies that man; he was a 
banker. Do you know his son who went to California, or his 
daughter, that lived in this or some other city ? They are 
dead." "Do you know that one that lies there? He built 
that great block down town. And there is the tomb-stone of 
that early settler, who projected so many enterprises, and 
helped to build up the city." This is the way they will talk 
about you and about me, and the wheels of industry will roll 



98 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

on, the merry laughter of childhood will ring out, the sportive 
jest will go round, and the flowers will bloom and fade above 
you and me sleeping, sleeping down in the ground. Strange, 
strange destiny that all must die ! 

Now we may ask. Is this that we call death the end of our 
being? It will be anticipating the subject of immortality, 
and yet I want to say a few things here. It seems to me, if 
we get a correct view of death, that it is only another form 
of birth — a kind of upward movement instead of downward. 
Before we came into this world we had our life in connection 
with the life of our mothers ; we drew our life from our 
mothers. And after reaching a point where it was possible to 
live independent of our mothers, we came out into this world, 
and found ourselves here in bodies, which are only a kind of 
walking matrix, in which the higher life is being developed. 
Separated from our maternal life, there is another umhilicuSy 
the air, that seems to bind us to the great life we are now liv- 
ing. We enter upon this higher and wider life by breathing ; 
we hold it by breathing, and we live in this walking matrix, 
receiving strength from our vaster mother, nature, and we 
seem to develop until it is severed, and we are born up into a 
higher life. So it looks to me as I contemplate this strange 
mystery of life. It seems to me that when this life goes out, 
we are born into some condition of being that is higher. If 
we take this view of the subject, it relieves what we call dying 
of much of the unnecessary darkness and gloom that has 
been thrown about it. It reminds me of a beautiful allegory 
I have somewhere read. It is related that a tree heard one 
of its leaves crying, and coming to the leaf, asked it what it 



The Change We Call Death. 99 

was crying about. And the leaf said that the wind had told 
it that the time would come when it must be blown away. 
Then the tree told the branch, and the branch told the leaf 
to dry its tears ; it should not die, but should continue to 
sport inself in the summer breeze and the summer sunshine. 
But after a while the leaf saw a silent change coming over its 
fellow-leaves. They gradually put off their modest green, 
and were decked in hues of purple and gold. It looked upon 
this dress of beauty, and upon its own familiar green, and it 
began to cry again, and the branch told the tree that the leaf 
was crying, and the ti'ee came again to see about what the leaf 
was crying. And the leaf said: " The other leaves are dressed 
in garments of beauty, while I keep on my old garment of 
green, and I cry." Then the tree told the leaf that this change 
of dress would be put off to-morrow, and that it might now, if 
it wished, put on these garments. And thus the leaf was per- 
mitted to put on the golden hues, and the winds of autumn 
came, and soon it was borne away. 

So, my friends, much as we dread the autumn and winter 
of death, we might well weep if we had forever to stay down 
in these lower worlds, in these feeble bodily conditions, down 
at the bottom of this ocean of atmosphere, when the worlds 
of beauty roll on forever in immensity, and souls are rising 
and casting off their garments of dust, and passing away. 
Let us rather rejoice that, having had a birth that brought 
us into this state, and a development as far as possible, we 
may welcome the approach of the hosts of joy, dressed in 
garments woven by angel fingers ; welcome the lines that time 
brings about the eye ; wflcome the weight of years that 



100 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

begins to press us down ; welcome the weakness of age, th« 
decay of strength, the dimness of sight, the dullness of hear- 
ing ; and even let the cold winds of winter and the hot suns 
of summer hasten the process, for it is only the wearing out 
of the body, the putting on of garments for the evening, the 
getting ready for the morning ; and then will come the whis- 
per by-and-bye : " You have traveled long enough, you 
have toiled long enough ; now lay down the burden, gather up 
your feet, and go to the vaster realm above and beyond ! " 

In the language of this other text, we may well pray in the 
presence of such a strange mystery as this, " So teach us to 
number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom; " 
that we may not live only in the body or only in the senses; 
that when death comes and smites this tabernacle, the spirit 
which inhabits it may be ready for its final home. Let us 
weave now the fair garment of intelligence, of purity, of 
truth, of goodness, and of character, my friends ; live by the 
law of right, that we may go down to death with anticipation, 
and not with dread. For the sting of death is sin, and the 
strength of sin is the law, and over it God has given us the 
victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ. I bid you take on 
the higher life, the better life, the helpful life, the Christ-life. 
Then death will only touch that which is dust, and the 
freed spirit, redeemed and purified and saved, will pass 
through the valley and the shadow without fear, and dwell in 
His presence forever. May God add His blessing. 



VIII. 

THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 

God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.— Matthew, xxn, 32, 

OUR last discourse of this series was on that change 
which, in the language of our world, we call dying ; 
and we come now, in the natural order of things, to 
inquire whether this change terminates our existence, or 
whether, in any sense, we survive death. If the former, of 
course the book of human destiny would close with dying ; 
but if the latter be true, we have opened out to our view the 
vast fields that lie beyond. To our outward senses, death 
seems very much like the end of man. We are accustomed 
to know each other in life by the bodily form, to recognize 
each other by the senses of sight and hearing. But sickness 
comes, the body wastes away, the voice becomes feeble, the 
eye grows dim, and finally death closes the scene. And it does 
seem, to our observing, very much as though our being termi- 
nated at this point ; for we may linger never so fondly over 
the loved clay, but there is no response to our tears, no 
answer to our questionings. We may go to the grave where 
our loved ones sleep, and hope there in some way to come 
into communion with those who have gone before, but the 



102 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

stillness of the tomb seems only to mock our earnest prayer. 
I have not been surprised that scientific men, especially, find 
difficulty in believing in the immortality of the soul — men 
who are accustomed to dealing with material things, handling 
substances that are constantly changing in form and disap- 
pearing, seeking the ultimate source of life, and failing. It is 
not surprising that to such men difficulty and doubt hang over 
the future ; for while they see that in all nature life continues, 
it does not seem to be the same life. The flowers of next 
Spring will take the place of these that now bloom, but these 
flowers will bloom no more. When our forests have gone 
down under the weight of time, others will take their 
place, but they will not be those that now give us shade. It 
is true their science teaches these men to expect a continuance 
of the substances that compose these organisms. A tree may 
be burned up, but there is so much that escapes in vapor, so 
much in smoke, and so much is left in ashes. We can tell 
where it has gone, but the tree can never be restored. Look- 
ing at the subject from this standpoint, while scientific men 
may think there will be a conservation of the dust of our 
bodies, a conservation of their vital forces, and even that mind 
may some how return to the great universe of truth, yet they 
find difficulty in believing in the continued life of each soul, 
in the continued identity of our being. And if in this we are 
to be disappointed, if we are to lose our individuality — that 
which in a peculiar sense makes us ourselves — then we can 
feel but little interest in a future existence. 

I want to look as closely as we may be able into this ques- 
tion, and, in so doing, return again to what seems to be the 



The Immortality of the Soul. 103 

end of our being in the dissolution of the body, and see if 
there may not be, even in our dying, evidence that will help 
us. If wo would grapple successfully with a subject of this 
kind, we must come under the conditions of its truth. It is 
in vain that men will try to debate any question unless they 
are willing to yield themselves to the conditions under which 
that question must be studied. If a man would study music, 
he must cultivate his ear, his sense of time and tune. If he 
would study mathematics, he must cultivate his reasoning 
powers. And so, if he would grapple with this question, he 
must be willing to look closely into the constitution of our 
being, to consider occult or hidden forces, to look carefully 
within and deal with the subjective. I am fully aware of the 
difficulty encountered here by people who live largely in the 
senses. To their mind the destruction of the body seems like 
the destruction of everything. But there is something more 
than body about us — something within us that claims owner- 
ship of the body. We naturally speak of "my eye," "my 
head," "my body," — recognizing a proprietorship that does 
not reside in the body itself. It is not the physical eye that 
sees ; it serves only as a glass through which we look. It is 
not the ear which hears ; it is not the brain, the simple ner- 
vous structure, that thinks. There is something back of these 
that we call mind, or spirit. It is this that we are to look for 
and see whether the change we call dying reaches deep 
enough to uproot it. While death seems to cover the whole 
being, there are many cases in which the mental and spiritual 
power seems to shine out to the last. A man may lose any or 
even all of his limbs, and yet retain his consciousness. The 



104 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

body may be wasted with sickness, life may sink down into 
that valley of stillness where a breath would extinguish it, yet 
the mind may remain clear and strong and serene. Yea, it 
may gather strength by the subsidence of that which is mate- 
rial ; and all the powers of the spirit, its intuitions of God, its 
faith in the Supreme, all the affectional nature, may not only 
survive, but be intensified a hundred-fold. No love equals 
the love which the dying feel. When we look at the subject 
in this light, it would seem that there must be something 
on which we can hang a hope of life beyond the grave. 
Bishop Butler takes substantially this ground in the proposi- 
tion that if a force be found to exist, it will continue, unless 
there is a force competent to its destruction. And we do not 
find death to be that which destroys the life-principle. 

I want to suggest another argument. It is not new, and 
yet it is weighty. It is the argument founded on the univer- 
sal belief of our race in the continued life of the human soul. 
The strength of this argument is this : We consider as estab- 
lished the existence of a Supreme Being ; that mind was 
made for truth and truth for mind. Now, if we find that a 
universal belief has settled down on our race in all ages and 
conditions — universal, though not equally clear — covering the 
great fact of a continued life after death, it seems impossible 
that the God who made us capable of thinking, capable of 
truth, should permit the race to dream on, age after age, in a 
delusion. A heathen would hold that whatever is the univer- 
sal belief of mankind must be accounted the will of God. 

Alongside of this argument is another that is also neither 
new nor original, but which is equally weighty. That is the 



The Immortality of the Soul. 105 

universality of the desire for immortality. The strength of 
the reasoning here is that where there is a permanent longing 
and desire, there is something in the natural economy of 
things to correspond to this desire. This law pervades all 
nature. We have the example of the desire for food and 
drink, and nature answering it. The heart is made to love, 
and the love of other hearts responds. Following this anal- 
ogy, and still holding to the primal belief that a God of jus- 
tice reigns, it is incredible that this, the strongest desire of 
our nature, should not be realized. It is not stating it too 
strongly to say that if this desire is without foundation in 
fact, the Deity mocks man in planting in his nature intense 
longings for that which is enduring, yet permitting the race, 
age after age, to go down to death in utter despair. 

I want to advance, in connection with these, an argument 
that I do not remember to have ever seen in any book or to 
have ever heard. The argument is this : that the same rea- 
sons which led to the creation of human beings will demand 
their continuance. We are not able to say certainly what were 
the reasons in the Divine Mind that led to the creation of man. 
That creation might have been the outgrowth of the univer- 
sal love, the outgrowth of a desire to create beings \vif;h whom 
He might hold communion and raise to the realms of His feel- 
ings, and ultimately elevate to companionship with Himself. 
Whatever those rensons might have been, we cannot but con- 
ceive that what led to the creation of man would in some way 
seek to perpetuate man's being. It will not do to say that 
God is a mere model-builder, that he will go on age after age 
simply experimenting. When He endows humanity with the 



106 The Origin and Destiny of Man, 

crown of mind and spirit, when it comes to that point where 
that which is distinctive in man is given and to love for his fel- 
low-man, belief in his own immortal destiny, and faith in 
God — ^in all reason we are bound to the conclusion that the 
cause which led to our creation will continue to influence the 
Divine Being to our preservation. 

Wo may offer another argument, not new, drawn from the 
pleadings of morality, the pleadings of the heart-life. This 
world is certainly a moral battle-field, where through all the 
centuries truth has been pitted against error, reason against 
passion, justice against injustice. The whole history of man- 
kind shows that the battle has been a tedious one. The lines 
have wavered, and at no time has the final result been certain 
except to the eye of faith. Now I would take my stand by 
the side of every patriot who ever loved his country, by the 
side of every martyr who ever died for truth, by the side of 
every teacher who ever taught, by the side of every minister 
who ever preached, by the side of every missionary who ever 
went forth to heathen lands, by the side of those who have 
wiped away the tear of sorrow, who have tried to lift up the 
fallen, who have sat by the bedside of the dying and tried to 
push back the shadows of night — in the name of every one 
who has ever worked or thought or suffered for humanity, do 
I claim that there must be some future where the results of 
this great struggle are to be crowned with a compensation 
beyond what is reached here ; a future where the uneven 
scales of justice in this life may find their balance, where man 
shall be dealt with according to his merits. Taking our stand 
by the heart-life, I ask, in the name of reason, is all the long- 



The Immortality of the Soul. 107 

ing in human souls to be left out ? Is all the affection of 
this world, that has clung about life as the vine about the oak, 
to go for naught ? 

I may o£fer one argument more, and then pass to another 
class of reasons, and that is the utter unreasonableness of 
immortality not being true. I will state the lines upon which 
this travels briefly. Here we have space ; we call it unbound- 
ed. We have duration ; we say it is unending. Here we have 
our little earth, and about us the worlds composing our sys- 
tem, and rising above these other systems of worlds, till you 
finally come to the universe system. Here we have the 
human mind beginning first with its a, b, c, with its 1, 2, 3 ; 
traveling out along the lines of reading and reasoning, along 
the lines of inquiry, along the pathways of truth. Now, in 
an ordinary lifetime, in which one-third is given to sleep and 
another third to work, these lives have grappled with some of 
the problems of the world ; these bodies have sailed over 
some of its seas, and climbed some of its mountains ; these 
minds have looked around and learned something of science, 
a little of language, have pored over a few pages of history, 
and have peered anxiously into the great future beyond ; we 
open the Bible, and learn a little of divine truth ; we work 
and study, and these are the results we reach against we are 
sixty or seventy years of age. Now, if there be no immortal- 
ity, we have this amazing spectacle : lines of truth going out 
forever, yet the mind that shows capacity to grapple with 
truth, that builds its scaffolding to the stars, weighs the plan- 
ets, measures their distances, and marks their orbits — the 
mind capable of grappling with these mighty truths just get- 



108 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

ting a start, just reaching a point where life seems valuable, 
then dropping down into non-existence ! When a Humboldt, 
a Newton or a Descartes dies, a child is born ; it travels out 
to the point of knowledge they reached, and it dies. Another 
child is born ; it journeys to the farthest outpost of learning, 
and it dies. The process goes on through endless generations. 
The human mind is ceaselessly working out the problems of 
health, of science, of society and government ; the whole 
world is struggling in its heart-life ; yet we only live lives that 
come up to a certain point where existence ends in nothing ! 
In the name of reason, I say it cannot be. 

I now shall advance a few arguments of a different charac- 
ter. The first of these is the empirical testimony on the 
subject. I cannot of course claim for this the same weight 
in all minds. By empirical testimony, I refer to the experi- 
ences of thousands and millions of persons, — experiences of 
a spiritual character, experiences that touch the heart-life, tha 
spirit-Hfe, for there are millions on earth who will tell you that 
they have tasted the wora of God, that they have felt the 
powers of the world to come, that they have felt and do feel 
that they are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ, 
that they do feel that they are dwellers of the world to come 
as well as of the earthly world. They feel it must be so in the 
light of the divine experience that has come to them. As a 
rule, those who have come into deep religious experience 
have no difficulty in spanning the gulf between this and the 
future. 

There is another class of evidence that I call phenomenal. 
To this I ask you to give only such weight as you may think 



The Immortality of the Soul. 109 

it entitled to. What I mean by phenomenal testimony is that 
testimony which seems to come from the life beyond. We 
might say, had there been no accumulation of literature and 
history on this subject, that we could hope the spirits of the 
departed would in some way make themselves present to the 
living. But history and literature abound in testimony of 
this character. I think it is Carpenter's Mental Physiology 
which gives a case in point. The mother of an idiot son died 
when the latter was about three years old. The son lived 
until about the age of thirty. He was utterly without the 
power of reason or memory. He was taken sick, and brought 
to the point of dying. Just a few moments before he died, 
he seemed to wake to conscious intelligence. He looked up 
and said : "Oh, mother! mother! How beautiful ! how 
beautiful ! " It would seem that a distinct image must have 
been presented to the vision of the unfortunate young man — 
an image that could not have been produced by any faculty 
of reason, or brought up by memory, for these were a hope- 
less wreck. 

I will relate a case that has fallen under my own observa- 
tion — the experience of one of the most intelligent physicians 
in Iowa. I have known him over twenty years as a true, hon- 
orable man. He is one of the best scholars and most acute ob- 
servers in the State. He grew up a materialist, and remained 
a skeptic many years, and had often taken part in debates on 
the question of immortality, always holding the negative side. 
He was sitting in his office a few years ago, about nine o'clock 
in the evening. He sat there reflecting, the lights burning 
low. All at once his father appeared before him. He said 



110 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

he brushed bis eyes, thinking it was some kind of apparition, 
and he looked again, and his father stood there. He sum- 
moned all his intelligence and all the personal consciousness 
which he possessed, and his father stood there. He still 
wondered if it were not some illusion, and he blew out the 
light and stepped outside the door, and his father stood there. 
He went home ; his wife noticed there was something unusual 
the matter with him, and inquired the cause, but he felt re- 
luctant to tell her at once. Next day a telegram reached him. 
He knew what it was before he opened it. It was the an- 
nouncement of his father's death, a few hours before his form 
had appeared in the office the evening before. There are 
some who may say: "All nonsense!" "All superstition!" 
But I say this to you as an honest man : If I am not to be- 
lieve the testimony of the senses of men as intelligent as any 
one here, how am I to believe anything ? I am quite willing 
to set it down as something I cannot understand ; but to deny 
it, I dare not. The impression on the mind of that man was 
so great that he began a life of prayer, and is now an earnest 
member of a Christian church. If you will go down into the 
inner life of many of the most prayerful souls, you will find 
them walking the earth in the sweet consciousness of the com- 
panionship of departed loved ones. Some may call this spirit- 
ualism. I do not care what you call it. The Bible is full of 
a pure spiritualism. It records instances where the spirits 
of the departed have appeared to those on earth. In our 
efforts to get away from what is gross and sensual in modern 
spiritualism, we have possibly drifted from the Bible and from 
that which is a happy and holy conviction to thousands. 



The Immortality of the Soul. Ill 

Bishop Clarke, of our own church, who died a few years ago 
in Cincinnati — a patient, scholarly, devout man — said to his 
wife and grown-up children, as they gathered about his death- 
bed, that this was very present to him, that he should still be 
permitted to be near them after death, that even when they 
might not know it he should be "with them. 

This phenomenal evidence is something -which comes with 
a peculiarly convincing power to the minds that are favored 
with it. Some how truth has been advanced, in this material 
age, even in the grosser forms of the spiritualism of our time, 
and the souls that are sensitive to the sweet influences from 
beyond have felt its power. We are nearing the time, I think, 
when the river that flows between this life and that of the 
future will indeed be very narrow, when the gulf will be 
almost bridged, when millions will walk this earth in the 
Bweet companionship of the departed, and God and the future 
will be as imminent and real as are the things of the present 
world. 

I beg your attention, for a moment, to the argument based 
on the Scriptures. The Bible does not usually argue ques- 
tions by taking them up topically, and enforcing them point 
by point, and the Old Testament is not luminous on this ques- 
tion. The Jewish economy related quite largely to the affairs 
of this world. Yet there is a reasoning by examples as well 
as words that points with unmistakable language to a future 
state. Take the old idea of the patriarchs being gathered to 
their fathers. That does not mean that they should be gath- 
ered to the dust of the dead, but to the living spirits of those 
who had gone before. Take the language of Job ; " Though 



112 The Origin and Destiny of MaTu 

the worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." 
Take the beautiful words of David: "In the valley and 
shadow of death I will fear no evil ; I shall dwell in the house 
of the Lord forever." In the New Testament, in the 14th 
chapter of St. John, our Saviour says : "Let not your heart 
be troubled. Ye believe in God ; believe also in me. In my 
Father's house are many mansions ; if it were not so, I would 
have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I 
go to prepare a place for you, I will come again to receive you 
unto myself." "If it were not so, I would have told you." 
The assurance comes to me with a frankness, a candor, an 
honesty, that exalts the great Teacher in my thought. For the 
whole world has been reasoning on this question since the 
beginning of recorded time. Socrates discoursed of it for 
hours before he drank his poison, strengthening his own 
heart and the heart of humanity by writing or dictating his 
immortal Phsedo. But while humanity approached the sub- 
ject from this side with all its reason, its love and its tears, 
the immortal Teacher comes to us from the other shore and 
says : " If it were not so, I would have told you ^ immortality 
is a fact." Above all other things in the character of Christ 
stands his perfect loyalty to truth. If the denial of immor- 
tality had cut the last thread that sustained millions of hearts, 
he would not have hesitated had truth required it. In the 
twenty- second chapter of Acts, where there was a dispute 
between the Sadducees and Pharisees, we have the evidence 
of Paul. The Sadducees believed neither in angels nor in 
spirits. The Pharisees believed in both. In this discussion 
Paul says: "I am a Pharisee." That is to say: I believe 



TJie Immortality of the Soul. 113 

on this point as tlie Pharisees believe ; they believe in angels 
and spirits, and I believe in them. 

Or yon may take the argument of onr text, one of the most 
beautiful and philosophical in the Bible: "God is not the 
God of the dead, but of the living." If God were the God 
of the dead, then death must be the destiny of every one, and 
into its dark vortex God himself must ultimately fall. I want 
you to get the full force of this statement, for there is philos- 
ophy in the argument, and it is the philosophy that runs 
through the Bible. " God is the God of the living." Being 
the living God, He is the fountain of life, and while He lives 
His children shall live also — live after the rolling centuries 
shall have completed their long cycles. Being the God of 
the living. He gathers life unto Himself, and not death. Like 
music on the sweet morning air, souls are evermore going up 
to their fountain, going up to the source of their being. God 
is the God of the living ; the God of Abraham and Isaac and 
Jacob, who have been dead thousands of years — dead in the 
earthly sense, yet living unto Him. As I look into youi* 
faces, and think of the many hearts longing for the life to 
come, I am glad that immortality is not only a faith but a 
great fact. I am glad that while the snows of winter may lie 
over the graves of loved ones, their spirits are up with God. 
I am glad that life is the ultimatum of the race, and not 
death. I am glad that in this world of graves we may walk 
along the shore of the stream that divides time from eternity, 
and say. Our friends are just over there. Yes — 

"Over the river they beckon to me, 

Loved ones who 've crossed to the farther side ; 

8 



114 The Origin and Destiny of Man, 

The gleam of their snowy robes I see, 

But their voices are lost in the dashing tide. 
There 'a one with ringlets of sunny gold, 

And eyes the reflection of heaven's own blue ; 
He crossed in the twihght gray and cold. 

And the pale mist hid him from mortal view. 
We saw not the angels who met him there, 

The gates of the city we could not see ; 
But over the river, over the river, 

My brother stands waiting to welcome me. 

"Over the river the boatman pale 

Carried another, our household pet ; 
Her brown curls waved in the gentle gale; 

Darling Minnie! I see her yet. 
She crossed on her bosom her dimpled hands, 

And fearlessly entered the phantom bark; 
We felt it glide from the silver sands. 

And all our sunshine grew strangely dark. 
We know she is safe on the other shore, 

Where all the ransomed and angels be ; 
Over the river, the mystic river. 

Our household pet is waiting for me. 

"And I sometimes think, when the sunset's gold 

Is flushing river, and hill, and shore. 
That I shall one day stand by the water cold, 

And Hst for the sound of the boatman's oar ; 
I shall catch a gleam of the snowy sail, 

I shall hear the boat as it nears the strand; 
I shall pass, with the boatman pale and cold, 

To the better shore of the spirit land. 
I shall know the loved who have gone before, 

And joyfully sweet vail the meeting be, 
When over the river, the peaceful river. 

The angel of death shall carry me." 

God grant that this immortality may be yours and mine ia 
the heavenly world. 



IX. 

THE INTEEMEDIATE STATE. 

But man dieth, and wasteth away ; yea, man giveth up the ghost, 
and where is he?— Job, xiv, 10. 

OUE present mode of being is denominated life, and in 
tliis we have three forms of consciousness, or con- 
sciousness under three expressions. We have what is 
called sense-consciousness, or the consciousness that comes 
to us through the medium of the senses ; as what we hear, 
what we see, what we feel , a form of life that opens out 
through the senses to the outer world. Then we have what 
may be called self-consciousness ; or perhaps it might more 
properlv be called mind-consciousness — the consciousness 
that does not realize itself in looking outward, but finds its 
being by introspection; that which we rest upon when we 
turn the mind within. In addition to these, we have what 
may be called God-consciousness, the consciousness of the 
divine, that by which we are impelled to goodness, that 
which looks upward and heavenward. In other words, in 
this mysterious trinity of life we have in sense-consciousness 
the complement of oui bodily powers, in mind-consciousness 
the complement of the mental powers, in spirit-consciousness 
the complement of the spiritual powers. The change spoken 



116 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

of in our text, which we call death, takes away from us the 
first form of consciousness. In other words, death is the dis- 
solution of bodily conditions, of the powers of the senses ; a 
severance of the relations which the mind in its present state 
holds with outward and material things. It is affirmed in the 
text that "man dieth, and wasteth away." This change 
called dying and wasting away, so far as the body is con- 
cerned, is the most absolute we can imagine. There is in 
death not only a cessation of the bodily functions, a loss of 
the powers by which life is maintained, but there is a wasting 
away, an utter dissolution after death of the particles that 
were held together by the vital principle. In our last dis- 
course we attempted to show that the real self, that about 
which the inquiry in the text started — beyond the wasting 
away, "where is he ? " — that this self is not affected by death, 
but lives on. Our inquiry now shall be in reference to the 
mode of life of the disembodied spirit. It would be a very 
great gratification were I able to speak with assurance on this 
subject. It would be no ordinary pleasure could I part the 
veil, and reveal to you just what the spirit-life is. But I 
cannot, in truthfulness, speak to you on this subject with any 
great degree of definiteness or certainty. 

In the first place, I shall refer to the literature in regard to 
what is called in the language of theology the Intermediate 
State — the state of the disembodied spirit before its re-invest- 
iture with the organism or body of the spirit-world. It is 
interesting to go back and trace out the thought of the early 
ages in reference to spirit-life. There was among the old 
Egyptians the general thought that the spirit did not die. 



The Intermediate State. Ill 

But in those early times, in grappling with these subtle ques- 
tions, they seem not to have reached very definite conclusions. 
The nearest that the ancient Egyptian mind came to a con- 
ception in reference to the disembodied spirit was that it was 
something like a shadow, an indefinite spirit-form of some 
kind, and they thought that this spirit-form went downward 
instead of upward. They seemed to think of it under the 
idea of its having an underground or cavernous existence — 
possibly something that corresponded to the Hebrew idea of 
sheol and the Greek idea of hades — meaning a dark or unseen 
world. Beyond this there was the idea, possibly origiaating 
also in Egypt, and developed more fully in Greek philosophy, 
of the transmigration of souls, called the doctrine of metem- 
psychosis. This doctrine comes out in the Greek philosophy 
under the teachings of Pythagoras, that the spirit went into 
some form in. the animal creation, and that the form which it 
entered corresponded to the character of the spirit in this life. 
If a man were of a vicious nature, his spmt went into some 
vicious animal. If he were low and coarse, it went into 
something of that kind. If he were gentle and refined, the 
spirit would possibly enter something of a lamb-like or dove- 
like nature. If he were soaring and ambitious, the spirit 
might dwell in the eagle. If he were shrewd and crafty, it 
might live ia the fox. Pythagoras did not look upon this 
doctrine as the most pleasant thing to contemplate, and he 
sought some means by which the period of the soul's trans- 
migration might be shortened. He went so far as to teach 
his followers that if they would observe the rules of life he 
would lay down, they might possibly escape this transmigra- 



118 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

tion altogether, and miglit at death rise at once to some 
degree of communion with the Infinite. Plato taught that 
there were ten changes in the condition of the soul after 
death, and that it lived in each of these conditions a thousand 
years, making ten thousand years of the journey of the 
human spirit in some animal form. 

It is difficult to say on what ground of reason the ancients 
reached these strange conclusions. It is difficult to conceive 
of the human spirit leaving the body and taking possession 
of some animal — toiling all day as a horse, or roaming the 
woods as a deer. I think it is Baring Gould, who suggests 
that it may have grown out of the idea of man's distant sep- 
aration from the divine ; that he possibly had to go through 
some form of preparation or punishment, to atone for the 
wrongs done in this life. If the doctrine of Evolution, as 
held by many in our day, be true, then the doctrine of the 
transmigration of souls would not seem so unnatural, or 
unreasonable. For if man is evolved from the brute, and 
fails while in the human form to reach up and take hold of 
that which is above, fails to develop his spirit-powers, to 
reach and stand in spirit-life ; if he, on the other hand, tends 
downward in his nature, developing only the animal that is 
within him, then there may be a law of retrogression, by 
which he is remanded, or sinks back again, to that from 
which he came, or to the animal condition. From this second 
animal life he might gradually rise to the human again ; or, 
more likely, abide under the diminishing power of retro- 
gression, and j)ossibly lose conscious identity, or sink to 
non-existence. 



The Intermediate State. 119 

Then there is the doctrine of the sleep of souls, which 
holds that when the body dies the spirit goes into a sleep, or 
■anconscioTis state, and will have no conscious life till it is 
raised in the resurrection. There is also, in the Boman 
Catholic Church, tho doctrine of iDurgatory — a doctrine that 
provides for the spirit not only a state which is intermediate, 
but a place that is intermediate between what we call heaven 
and what we call hell. This doctrine was authoritatively 
affirmed by the Council of Florence in the fifteenth century, 
and later was reaffirmed by the Council of Trent. The doc- 
trine is substantially this : that the soul, after leaving this 
world, enters a state where it undergoes a process of purifica- 
tion before going to the realms of bliss. They teach, in 
addition to this doctrine of purgatory, that souls in that state 
may be reached and affected favorably by the prayers of the 
church, and by the alms-giving of their friends and relatives. 
The Episcopal Church holds to a doctrine somewhat similar 
to that of purgatory, in the sense that the spirit dwells in a 
state of liberation for a kind of strengthening or purification 
that it cannot receive in the body. I should be very sorry to 
misrepresent either the Catholic or Episcopal Church, and 
these statements of their views are chiefly from the readings 
of other years, and since my late illness I have not felt like 
looking up the matter anew. My impression is that the 
Episcopal Church holds to this idea : that the soul, after 
dwelling in the sensuous organism of this life, is permitted, 
in this intermediate state, to get a certain strength, or devel- 
opment, to make it practically safe for it to take on the bodily 
condition in the resurrection. 



120 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

I have thus looked at some of the general ideas that have 
obtained on this subject. It seems from the Scriptures, also, 
that there is some such state as we may properly term inter- 
mediate, i Oi they do not seem to favor the idea that the soul 
sleeps or dies with the body. They rather seem to teach that 
there is a life after the dying and before the risiag. This is 
illustrated in the case of Christ, for it is not to be supposed 
that the period between his crucifixion and his resurrection 
was passed in a state of non-existence. The thought of the 
church has ever been that this was a period of consciousness 
of some kind, a view supported by the words of Christ him- 
self to the thief on the cross : "Verily I say unto thee, this 
day shalt thou be with me in paradise." It seems also to 
have been the thought of Paul that to be absent from the 
body was to be present with the Lord. 

Let us now pass to some reflections of a general character, 
for the mind of man is strangely inquisitive. The first is in 
reference to the probable appearance of spirit-life — not as it 
may appear to mortal eyes, but the appearance that is real 
and present to the spirits themselves. Probably few of us 
have thought upon the form of what we call mind. We read- 
ily fall into views and feelings in reference to the body, as 
that is visible and real to the outward senses. And if we rear 
son on the matter from analogy, it will not seem improbable 
that the human soul should have definite form. Our nervous 
system is distributed throughout the entire body, but always 
conforms to the shape of the human figure. So likewise the 
veins and arteries. Even the human skeleton preserves an 
outline of the body. To return now to the mind. I see no 



The Intermedials State. 121 

reason for supposing that the mind and spirit of man are not 
governed as to form by the same law. I cannot see 'svh.j my 
mind m.ay not reside in my fingers as well as in my head. I 
cannot see why the mind itself may not have body-form ; nor 
why there is not, in this body of ours, a mental and spiritual 
being, having a real form, corresponding to that in. which we 
dwell. Indeed, I suppose it is mind and spirit that give 
bodily form. This is the doctrine of the New or Sw^eden- 
borgian Church. I do not see that it is contradicted by any- 
thing in the teachings of physiology or metaphysics, or by 
anything in the Scriptures. "Wherever the Scriptures tell of 
the coming to earth of the spirits of the departed, the sj^irits 
appear in bodily form. So, also, the angels, which are jpossi- 
bly spii'its of the departed — they, too, appear in bodily form. 
I would call attention to another fact : that when life grows 
feeble in the body, and the sense-perception begins to fade, 
there is a turning inward of the mind upon itself — an inten- 
sifying of the mental self. I have seen this illustrated in the 
case of persons who have lived largely in the appetites being 
suddenly smitten with sickness. When such persons find the 
outer world fading from their view, finding no pleasure in 
eating and drinking, and unable to pursue the ordinary avoca- 
tions of life — these persons will often experience what seems 
to be a sinking in from the outer world ; their thoughts will 
be turned inward * their spiritual natures will become inten- 
sified ; they will become alarmed, and will pray. Then if, on 
experiencing a recovery of health, they fall away from this 
spiritual exaltation, many people will say they were not sin- 
cere. But I can conceive how it is that such men, their life 



122 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

driven in nj)on itself, find themselves standing face to face 
with their mental consciousness, face to face with God. And 
it is not strange that when thoughtless, sinning men are 
brought to this point, they should call out to God for mercy. 
Then, if health is restored, and they find the greater portion 
of their life again residiag in the senses, they forget the vivid 
spiritual experience they had in sickness. This seems to me 
to point by analogy to the fact that when the body is thrown 
off, the spirit will have an intensified perception of spiritual 
truth, and will be in a sense shut up to itself. 

I cannot think there is any foundation for a belief quite 
generally entertained that some great change is wrought upon 
the spirit itself in dying. Looking upon death as simply 
touching the body, and releasing the spiritual being, I cannot 
think that it in any sense affects our natures except to inten- 
sify them. It does not make an uneducated man a scholar ; 
it does not give an inexperienced man experience ; it does not 
give a coarse nature culture and refinement. The miser 
remains a miser, the lecher lustful, the liar untrue. Death 
leaves a man just as it finds him. The birth out of the bodily 
condition does not in the least affect the character of the man. 
It is only a step out of the conditions of this life. It is a 
change, but not a complete revolution from the low condi- 
tions of earth to the highest conditions of the future. 

There is another feeling in the human mind, that is possi- 
bly founded on an old pagan idea — a dread that some persons 
have of dying, not only of the physical suffering, but a dread 
to face the change, a dread to pass the narrow gate. One 
might naturally dread this if he supposed he were to go into 



The Intermediate State, 123 

some dark cavernous region, or to enter into some animal. He 
might well shrink from a deep sleep, undisturbed even by a 
dream. But if we are Christians, if we abide in Christ, if we 
cling to the idea that Christ has abolished death, that he has 
removed its sting, then there is nothing left of dying but the 
simple passage from one shore to the other. In most cases 
the suffering of the dying is far less than is generally sup- 
posed. I have been at the point, as perhaps many of you 
have, where the suffering of death would have been far less 
than the tedium of recovery. Let us then take the human 
spirit at the point of its journeying down to the death of the 
body, and try to get all the light that is possible on the 
change. There is, first, a sinking down, a wasting away, the 
feeling of the weight of years, or the fact of disease enfeebling 
the physical powers ; and at last there is the coming down to 
the point where the spirit leaves the body. It may or may 
not be a moment of unconsciousness. The Swedenborgian 
Church teaches that it is three days from the time when 
death comes to the body to the time when the spirit-form 
is fully bom out into the light of the other world. It is 
supposed by some that there is a point of unconsciousness. 
By others it is thought that what is called unconsciousness is 
only the passing from one life to the other. 

The mind having consciousness of itself, of the world it is 
leaving and the world to which it goes, what will be the con- 
dition of the spirit just as it emerges from the body ? There 
is a beautiful work entitled "Yesterday, To-Day and For- 
ever," in which the writer represents himself at the dying 
moment, in the sweet consciousness of passing out of his 



124 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

body, his friends standing around liis bedside. Then he pic- 
tures himself in his spirit-form, lingering about his body, 
witnessing the wife and children gathered about the lifeless 
form. Then, passing out into the streets of the city, he sees 
the great world and the mighty spirit-struggle that is not vis- 
ible to mortal eyes — the good spirits surrounding youth and 
trying to lead them upward, and evil spirits, in their dark 
investiture, seeking to lure them downward. Then, being 
borne above, he is received by bands of angel friends and con- 
ducted to his place of rest. This, of course, is poetry, but it 
gives what the author conceives will be the experience of the 
spirit in its transition from the body. 

Personally, I think that one coming down to the point of 
dying may find it something like the setting of the sun. Had 
we never seen the going down of our sun, we would dread the 
thought of darkness coming on. Men would gather in 
the deepest alarm as the great orb began to descend in the 
west. They would gaze anxiously at the last lingering rays 
on the tree-tops and hill-tops. But as the sun gradually dis- 
appeared, and darkness began to settle over them, they would 
see in the distance a twinkling star ; and as they looked at 
this, another would appear, and another, and another, till, as 
they stood gazing, the whole starry heavens would shine out 
before them. Instead of the going down of the sun being an 
eclipse, it only makes visible the splendor of the heavens. So 
we should go down to dying, thinking of the change as only 
revealing to us the vaster universe beyond. 

Again, I think that death, being a birth out of the body 
into this other condition, the life beyond is possibly one of 



The Intermediate State. 125 

gradual unfolding, not nnlike our cliildliood life here. I can- 
not think that a man is one thing here, and the next moment 
something very different in the other world. I cannot think 
that a man passes at once from low earthly conditions to a 
life far away among the angels. It seems to me that whatever 
change the spirit undergoes after leaving the body will be 
gentle and gradual. The tired spirit may need rest; the 
weak spirit may need strength. In the land where all is new, 
there will be a gradual learning, a tender leading out into the 
morning of that glad day. In my own feelings, I have not a 
doubt that not only will Kfe continue, but that it will experi- 
ence a gentle disclosure of the things beyond. I have not a 
doubt that angelic spirits will be in attendance to accompany 
us to our final home. I can think of nothing sweeter than a 
mother coming to stand by the death-bed of a child; or a 
child coming to meet its mother ; or friends and neighbors, 
with whom we have held sweet converse, coming to greet us 
at the last hour on earth. They will come to reassure our 
dying hopes ; and, passing from the hands that soothe our 
aching brow and the lips that whisper in our heavy and un- 
hearing ears, we shall find ourselves by the side of friends in 
the other life. Socrates, before he died, said he expected 
soon to be with Homer, and Hesiod, and Orpheus, and 
Musaius. Cicero apostrophized his departed daughter, and 
said he should meet her in the realms of the blest. Dante 
thought to find his Beatrice in the spirit-life. It is the hope 
that you and I carry that we shall meet our children in the 
other land ; that we shall there meet our friends who have 
died here, and that they will be our guides, guardians and 



126 The Origin and DcHtiny of Man. 

coTinsellors ; that tliey will lead us forth into that fair land, 
and will continue to minister unto us. 

As I stand here, it seems like a dream that I am talking to 
you in the light of this beautiful room ; that the time will 
soon come when others shall be here and we shall be gone. 
Yes, my friends, the strange mystery lies before us. "Man 
dieth and wasteth away," but the spirit goeth up from the 
body. Wliile I feel, as I said before, that I talk without that 
firm foundation under me that I could wish as to exact facts, 
yet I have a conviction that is present and immovable that the 
spirit-life of those who trust in God will be as it should be ; 
that the life of the spirit will be suited to the spirit. Journey 
on in life, then. Do what is right. Trust in God. When 
the time comes to give up your friends, give them up not as 
one without hope, but trustfully, aye, cheerfully. And when 
our own time comes to go from this world, let us joyfully 
bid good-bye to the songs of friends, and go in the hope of a 
reunion and happiness in the land beyond. 



X. 

THE EESTJREECTION. 



Who shall roll ns away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? — 
Mask, xyi, 3. 

Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God 
should raise the dead?— Acts, xxvi, 8. 

MAN has appeared everywhere on the earth as a con- 
queror. He subdues the forests, reclaims the waste 
places, and drives out the wild beasts. He makes 
use of the power of the wind and water and electricity. In 
everything he seems to be the master — as he is. But he has 
never been able to fully resist disease, nor to overcome the 
tendency to decay and death which is found in his own body. 
And, one age following after another, he may be represented, 
as coming with the mourners who came to the grave of Jesus, 
and standing tearfully, questioningly in the presence of the 
great mystery of death, asking this question, "Who shall roll 
us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?" Who 
shall hang a light in this dark way ? Who shall help us to 
see clearly into that which is beyond ? As a rule, truth does 
not come at once in its fullness to the mind. It is more Hke 
the breaking of a new day. First we have the gray twilight 
of the morning, then the rising of the sun, and then the full- 



128 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

ness of the day. Especially when we come to look at matters 
in reference to the spirit, at questions in reference to the 
future, we cannot at once get the impressions of great truths 
upon the mind. It is only by much looking, by steady look- 
ing, and long looking, that the picture seems to take on its 
fullness, that a life beyond the grave seems to become a fact 
to us. And this is one of the benefits that I have hoped 
might arise from this series of discourses — that you will be 
benefited far beyond what I may say ; that the light shall 
come to you that comes from looking into the future and 
keeping the subject before the mind. 

So, after having looked at the question of death, and in the 
next discourse trod with what seemed a firm and sure footing 
on the shores of the beyond, we last Sunday evening took up 
the question of the Intermediate State. I said to you then 
that while my mind was not very clear on the subject, I 
thought it was one that should not be passed over. My con- 
clusions were that the soul of man, on leaving the body, does 
not at once enter upon the fullness of bliss or of sorrow ; that 
it does not go at once to what we call heaven or to what we 
call hell ; but that there is a time of longer or shorter dura- 
tion in which it gathers strength and preparation for the 
spirit-life. Then it is the faith of the church, both Protestant 
and Roman Catholic, that in some form there is to be a resur- 
rection or re-Kving of the body, and this intermediate state 
lies between death and that event. The exact question we 
now come to, seems to be this : Death takes away our body, 
deprives us of the senses through which we have held 
communion with material things ; now is man to live on for- 



The Resurrection. 129 

ever in the absence of this body ? Or is he to be re-invested 
with a material organization ? 

I will fii'st ask yoiii attention while I read 9 few selections 
from the Scriptures, which seem to be the basis on which the 
church has fonnded its belief that there would be a resurrec- 
tion of the body. I will read first from the 19th chapter of 
Job, beginning at the 25th verse with the well-known text, 
"For I know that my redeemer liveth : " 

For I know that my Eedeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the 
latter day npon the earth : 

And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh 
shall I see God : 

Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not 
another ; though my reins be consumed within me. 

But ye should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the 
matter is found in me ? 

Be ye afraid of the sword ; for wrath bringeth the punishments of the 
sword, that ye may know there is a judgment. 

There must be a special interest about this text from the 
fact that it reflects the old patriarchal conception of the sub- 
ject. According to our Bible chronology, Methuselah lived 
in the time of both Adam and Xoah ; and then, possibly 
about three generations from the time of the flood, the human 
family journeyed to the plains of Shinar and built the tower 
of Babel. Soon after this the book of Job was written. It 
thus comes in back of the time of Abraham ; and whether we 
look at it as literal history or as one of those poems written to 
illustrate truth, it is valuable as giving us that conception of 
truth which was back in the ancient mind. Here was this 
man, sick in mi d and in body, smitten in property, and 
wasting away under the touch of disease, yet he exclaims : 
9 



130 The Origin mid Destiny of Man. 

"I know that my Bedeemer liveth." So great is his fail^i 
under every form of aflfliction that he says : "Though after 
my skin worms destroy my body, yet in my flesh shall I sea 
God.'* There is in the 13th chapter of Hosea, in the 14th 
verse, this remarkable scripture : 

I will ransom them from the power of the grave : I will redeem them 
from death. O death, I will be thy plagues : O grave, I will be thy de- 
struction. 

And this from Daniel, 12th chapter, 2d verse : 

And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, 
some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 

This subject, of course, like the question of immortality, 

was but dimly seen in the old Scriptures, and it is not till we 

reach the New Testament that we get full light. I wiU now 

read from the 22d chapter of St. Matthew, beginning at the 

23d and ending at the 32d verse : 

The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no 
resurrection, and asked him, 

Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his 
brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. 

Now there were with us seven brethi'en : and the first, when he had 
married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his 
brother : 

Likewise the second, also, and the third, unto the seventh. 

And latob of all the woman died also. 

Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife shall she be of the seven ? 
for they all had her. 

Jesus answered and said unt© them, Ye do err, not knowing the 
Scriptures nor the power of God. 

For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, 
but are as the angels of God in heaven. 

But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that 
which was spoken unto you by God, saying, 

I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Ja- 
cob ? God is not the God of the dead, but of the hving. 



The Resurrection. 131 

Of course, this is a hypothetical case, but it is a very clear 
illustration of the Saviour's argument and of His answer to 
what was supposed to be the greatest difficulty in the way of 
the doctrine. So, also, is the text: "God is not the God 
of the dead, but of the living." If he were the God of 
the dead, He would be a dead God, gathering death unto 
Him ; but being the God of the living, He is a living God, 
and gathers life unto Himself. Our Saviour here sides with 
the thought that there is a resurrrection, and bases it on the 
fact that the spirits of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are still 
living, and that the living spirit will some how call out for a 
living body. 

Now let me read from the 15th chapter of First Corinthians. 
You will remember the whole chapter is devoted largely to 
the discussion of this subject : 

Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some 
among you that there is no resurrection of the dead ? 

But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen : 

And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith 
is also vain. 

Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God ; because we have testi- 
fied of God that he raised up Christ ; whom he raised not up, if so be 
that the dead rise not. 

For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised : 

And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain ; ye are yet in your sins. 

Then they, also, which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. 

If in this hfe only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most 
miserable. 

But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of 
them that slept. 

For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection 
of the dead. 

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 

The strength of the apostle's argument lies in this : He 



132 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

makes the resurrection of Christ the proof of the fact of the 
resurrection of maa, and then goes on to show that, if Christ 
be not risen, certain consequences follow. He wants to make 
sure of the fact of Christ's resurrection, for he joins the 
resurrection of man with it. He says, in the first place, " If 
Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain." Paul could 
well make such a challenge as this, for his preaching had 
caused governors and kings to tremble, and had shaken the 
foundations of society to their very base. Christ's apostles 
had filled the world with new ideas. Their preaching was 
actually transforming character, and was becoming a power 
before which the pagan leaders felt it became them to stand 
up and defend their own gods and their temples. Paul based 
the power of his preaching on the resurrection of Chist. 
Another result would be, that, if Christ be not risen, "your 
faith is also vain." I may not be able, in reference to some 
proposition, to prove to you that it is certainly true ; but if it 
be a question whether my faith in Christ is vain, then I may 
say, even as the blind man said : *' Whether He be a sinner 
or no, I know not ; one thing I know, that whereas I was 
blind, now I see." And Paul could well base his arguments 
on this appeal to consciousness. He felt that here was a faith 
which could not be vain, for it had accomplished great things; 
it had worked a clear reformation of character, and made new 
creatures of those who believed. Then the apostle says, if 
Christ be not risen, "we are found false witnesses of God, 
because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ." 
If Christ be not raised, their preaching was vain ; second, the 
faith of the people was vain ; third, the apostles must be set 



The Resurrection. 133 

down as self-convicted falsifiers before the world; and he 
finally draws one other consequence — "Then they, also, 
which are fallen asleep in him are perished." 

Let me read, now, from First Thessalonians, 4th chapter, 
beginning at the 13th verse : 

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them 
which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no 
hope. 

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them, also, 
which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. 

For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are 
alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them 
which are asleep. 

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with 
the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God ; and the dead in 
Christ shall rise first. 

Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with 
them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air ; and so shall we ever 
be with the Lord. 

Wherefore comfort one another with these words. 

In this scripture there seems to be a special care that we be 
instructed on this subject, that those who know sorrow shall 
not be "as others who have no hope." God knows it is hard 
enough for us to see our loved ones torn from our embrace, 
even when we are possessed with the assurance that they live 
hereafter. Bat what would be the gloom of that night, the 
fathomless depth of that shoreless ocean of sorrow, if we had 
not some such hope as this ! And he says, * ' Comfort one 
another with these words. ' ' Pass them around from home to 
home, from house to house, from heart to heart ; take cour- 
age and comfort from this assurance that, as "Jesus died and 
rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God 
bring with Him." 



134 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

I will only ask your attention to one more selection, which 
is from the 20th chapter of Bevelation, beginning at the 11th 
verse : 

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose 
face the earth and the heaven fled away ; and there was found no place 
for them. 

And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God : and the books 
were opened ; and another book was opened, which is the book of life : 
and the dead were judged out of these things which were written in the 
books, according to their works. 

And the sea gave up the dead which were in it ; and death and hell 
delivered up the dead which were in them ; and they were judged every 
man according to their works. 

And death and hell were cast into the lake of fii-e. This is the second 
death. 

And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into 
the lake of fire. 

It seems evident from these scriptures, and there are many 
more I might read, that the Bible certainly teaches the doc- 
trine of the resurrection. If we could be certain what is 
meant by this resurrection, we could feel that we had gained 
a great point. But here we are in the conflict of opinions, 
not as to the fact of the rising, but as to the manner. There 
is a large class of thinkers who claim that by the scriptural 
idea of resurrection there is meant simply the rising up of the 
soul from the body, its going up into a higher life after death. 
They claim, and justly enough, that the word we translate res- 
urrection may mean rising up, as well as rising again. Another 
view, maintained by a minister of our own church, of the 
California conference — Rev. Mr. Dryden — in a work pubHshed 
by our church, takes the ground that by the resurrection is 
meant not in any sense the rising of the body that dies, or 
that has lain in the grave, but the rising up of souls out of 



The Besurrection, 135 

what is called the intermediate or unseen state. He takes the 
general ground that souls, at death, go into this hades ; that 
they linger in this for a longer or shorter time ; that the 
resurrection is a rising out of this state, and it may be going 
on constantly ; and that it is not a rising of the material 
body. Then there is the doctrine of the church accounted 
orthodox, which holds, though not in the most definite 
form, to the rising of the body. In some sense, the general 
thought of the church is the resurrection of the body that 
dies. 

Now, I have stated these various theories to you, and I 
would be glad if I could state with certainty just where the 
exact truth lies. You can find plenty of younger men than 
myself who can tell you just where it is, but to one who has 
read and thought long and deeply on the subject, it is hard to 
speak definitely. Yet, out of all the different opinions that 
are held, this one truth seems beyond question : that the faith 
of the church and the teaching of the Bible assure us of a life 
beyond, a life that some how or in some way will have a 
bodily form, will answer to the thought of the re-living of the 
bodies that die ; for that seems to be the idea of a resurrec- 
tion. This man who holds that the resurrection is a rising out 
of the intermediate state makes a strong point on this, that 
it is the rising of the dead — not what we call dead in the 
sense of the body being dead— but of the living souls of 
those who have departed, applying the term "dead" to those 
who have died in the sense of bodily death, but who are 
living in the unseen state, out of which they arise. 

Passing now from these views, I want to look at the subject 



136 The Origin and Destiny of Man, 

from a different standpoint. Most writers have thought that 
the analogies of nature seem to illustrate the doctrine of the 
resurrection, and there are many beautiful thoughts connected 
with this view, but to my mind they do not have very much 
weight. There is the thought of day rising out of night ; the 
thought of spring rising out of the cold grave of winter. 
Possibly a better analogy might be found in the rising of the 
seed to the stalk, blossoming in the flower, and ripening in the 
fruit! Perhaps a still better one is that found in the change 
which the caterpillar undergoes, passing from its unseemly 
form to its chrysalis state, and emerging the bright-winged 
butterfly, resting in the air, and going from flower to flower. 
Passing from these analogies, I want to look back at some 
of the difficulties that hang about the question of the resur- 
rection. It may be a help to some minds to state them and 
answer them. In the first place, it is objected that there can- 
not be a resurrection of the body from the fact that the human 
body during life is frequently changed in its entire composi- 
tion. Formerly high authority used to controvert this fact, 
but it is better not to attempt that now. It is a pretty well 
established fact that a man living to the age of sixty will have 
at least six or seven bodies in that time. Now, the objectors 
say, a man having all these bodies, which one is it that will 
live hereafter ? At first view there seems to be something in 
this objection, but it really has very little strength, for that 
which we call identity, that which is our identity, does not 
desert us in these changes of the body. A man convicted of 
crime and sentenced to the penitentiary when a youth cannot 
say at the age of thirty : **I am not the man that was sen- 



The Resurrection. 137 

tenced here ; the body that was first put in prison is not the 
body I now wear." It might be true that he would not have 
one particle of the body with which he entered the cell, yet 
he would have that which satisfies the idea of selfhood, of per- 
sonal identity. 

It has been objected to the thought of the possibility of a 
resurrection, again, that the particles of the human body, 
when it dies and is placed away in the grave, not only return 
to dust, but that this dust may be again vitalized in other 
forms ; that it may grow in the tree and ripen in the fruit ; 
that it may go to nourish that which is eaten by other 
bodies, and may be assimilated with and become part of these 
bodies, and that in this way the fact of resurrection is made 
impossible. Now I do not see that there is much weight in 
this argument, for in the first place what we mean when we 
speak of the particles of the human body is the substances 
which compose it. Take an example : a human body contains 
so much iron, so much oxygen, so much hydrogen, so much 
lime — in a word, so many of the elementary principles of 
nature. Now suppose that this body be dissolved, what 
becomes of these elements ? The iron is iron still ; the oxy- 
gen is oxygen still ; the hydrogen is hydrogen still ; the lime 
is lime still. And it does not matter whether, in the human 
t>ody, you get back just the same hydrogen ; it does not mat- 
ter whether you get back just the same carbon, the same lime 
and the same iron. I breathe at this moment so much ogy- 
gen, and exhale so much carbon. The oxygen may have 
passed through other lungs, and thus have been a part of 
other bodies, but it is still oxygen. It remains itself ; and all 



138 TJie Origin and Destiny of Man, 

that is required to fulfill the idea of even a literal resurrection 
is that we have bodies composed of the same elements that 
went to make up our bodies here — tha. is, of oxygen, carbon, 
&c. Whether it be the same oxygen and carbon that once 
were a part of ourselves matters not ; for those elements are 
always and everywhere the same. 

So it is that out of these elementary particles human bodies 
are builded, and out of nature's storehouse God will in some 
way re-invest the spirit with a material organism. We can 
well believe that this is possible in the light of what chemistry 
can do. There are many things which the chemist can do 
which we would not believe to be possible did we not know 
them to be facts. I think it is Dr. Brown, who quotes from 
Mr. Hallett the story of a gentleman who was something of a 
chemist, and who had a number of servants. One of these 
had been particularly faithful, and he had given him a silver 
cup as a reward. The servant dropped the cup in a vessel of 
what he supposed to be pure watel:, but which in reality was 
aquafortis. He let it lie there, not thinking it could receive 
any harm, but returning some time after saw the cup gradu- 
ally dissolving. He was loudly bewailing his loss, when the 
other servants told him that his master could restore the cup 
for him. He could not believe them. " Do you not see," he 
said, "that it is dissolving before our sight?" But they 
insisted, and at last the master was brought to the spot. He 
called for some salt water which he poured into the vessel, 
and told the servant to watch. By-aud-by the particles of 
the silver cup began to gather as a white powder at the bot- 
tom. When the deposit was comijlete, the master said to the 



The Resurrection. 139 

servant : "Pour off the liquid, gather up this dust, have it 
melted and run together, then take it to the workman and let 
him hammer the cup out again." You may take gold. You 
may file it down to a powder, mix it with other metals, throw 
it into the fire, do what you will with it, and the chemist will 
bring back with certainty the exact gold. Thus our bodies 
are built up by fruits from the tropics, by grain from the 
prairies. The flesh that roamed the plains as cattle has 
become part of us. If God can build up human bodies here, 
can he not find and convert the dust that we put away in the 
grave, and bring it back to forms of life ? In my judgment, 
God is able to preserve even the particles of the human body 
and restore them. So far as the power is concerned, it can 
be done, and will be done, as God may think best. 

It seems to me there will be a resurrection in the sense of 
the soul being clothed with a material organism — something 
that will put it in relation to material things. I cannot think 
that this being of mine and yours, with all its experience of 
work and rest, of joy and sorrow, of struggle and victory, 
may have to go on without an outward bodily organism. I 
cannot believe that the spirit is to go on forever, leaving its 
companion behind — this body, which is the highest ideal of 
physical beauty. I need not now retrace the lines of thought 
given in the third of these discourses as to the processes 
which have led up to the perfect human form ; how they be- 
gan away down in the simplest forms of life, passing on 
through fish and serpent and quadruped, till we reach man, 
the being with the erect form and heavenward glance — man, 
with the hand that works, with the eye that weeps, with the 



140 The Origm mid Desimy of Man. 

face that laughs, with the reason that thinks, with the heart 
that feels. This human form is the highest ideal of physical 
organism. Well may we fondly linger about the ideals of 
Greek art. The perfect human form stands without a rival 
in the whole world of beauty. God having given us this 
body to illustrate the highest expression of beauty, and per- 
mitted us to rejoice in living in this form, and given it for a 
high purpose, then is it simply to be worn as a garment here ? 
This body seems to be the medium of sense communication. 
Now the material world is a fact, and it is one of the greatest 
facts which the mind can conceive. Here is the great earth 
on which we live ; there are the worlds of our solar system, 
and the worlds, infinite in number, that make the vast uni- 
verse. These are stupendous facts that endure. Then we 
have another variety of facts that live on. Water will run, 
trees will grow, flowers will bloom, fruits will ripen, the 
autumn breeze will rustle in the leaves, and sunshine will 
linger forever in beauty on the mountain tops. The question, 
as it looks to me, is this : Is man to be forever isolated from 
these things of beauty, and live in a sort of sublimated state, 
accessible only to the cold conceptions of thought ; or is he 
to have such a body about him as will be capable of touch 
and taste, of sight and hearing — such a body as may stand by 
the running brook, sit beneath the shadows of the groves, 
and listen to the sweetness of song ? And reason seems to 
say to me that the spirit of man is to have such a body in the 
great future. 

I know not, and I care not, myself, whether in some way 
we take the germ of that body with us when we pass to the 



The Resurrection. 141 

other side and our new body come as a growth, or whether 
by some divine agency the particles of the old body are gath- 
ered together. The great fact that I stand for is that the spirit 
lives, and that it is to have some such organism as will make it 
the connecting link between matter and spirit ; that man is 
forever to fill that place where he takes hold of God and of 
the material universe. I have a beautiful dream — the thought 
that not only does the soul live, not only will there be some 
bodily organism for you and me, one in which material and 
mental and spiritual things will unite, but that some how the 
resurrection body will be infinitely glorious. The Scriptures 
say that the body is sown in corruption and that it shall be 
raised in incorruption ; sown in weakness — and oh, how 
weak ! sinking down to the last gasping breath — it is raised in 
power ; sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. You take 
these elements and put them together. Take incorruption — 
the thought of a body that shall never feel the touch of dis- 
ease or decay. Take the thought of strength ; we sometimes 
feel the thrill and trill of life all through us ; one moment of 
such feeHng is worth half-a-dozen ordinary days when we 
are oppressed with the sense of weakness. Take the thought 
that we shall at last put on incorruptibility, put on an organ- 
ism that disease cannot touch, an organism that shall never 
know the weakness and weariness that come from work and 
thought — that we shall have strength equal to any undertak- 
ing. How often in this life do we turn away from some book 
and say, *'My head aches; I will have to quit reading"? 
How often do we hear persons say, "I shall not be able to 
build that house, or plant that orchard " ? The body that so 



142 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

fails us is to be placed beyond the contact of disease, beyond 
the touch of weariness ; it is to be endowed with the endur- 
ing strength of God Himself. 

I have a thought that the longing for the beautiful will find 
a realization in the perfect forms of our being hereafter. One 
of the most striking things in life, and perhaps one of the 
saddest, is to see the endless chase after beauty — the endless 
changes in the fashions of this world, the constant seeking 
for new types and higher realizations of the beautiful. The 
painter has put his ideal on the canvas and the sculptor in 
the marble, but our world goes on, seeking and finding not 
the perfect rest that is in the beautiful. The flowers whose 
fragrance we inhale are perfect as flowers ; the birds and the 
trees are each perfect in their way. But man journeys on, 
never feeling that he has reached the exact idea of beauty in 
which he can rest. This idea is some how to be realized. 
What shape the spirit-form may take we know not, but we 
feel sure that in it man will find his yearnings for the beauti- 
ful satisfied. Carrying our mental consciousness, with its 
power of reason ; our spiritual consciousness, with its power 
of love and devotion and sympathy ; and the thought of being 
re-invested with bodies beautiful beyond our present dreams, 
forever strong, forever young; and the vast universe being 
our home — the question comes, can all this be ? Yes ; it is 
no greater marvel than the present world that is about us. 
And He who has carried forward this vast work of creation is 
able to conserve the powers of mind and spirit, re-investing 
them with bodies, and giving them the vaster eternity in 
which to live, and labor, and love. 



XI. 

THE JUDGMENT DAT. 



And as it is appointed unto men once to die, butafter this the judg- 
ment.— Hebbews, IX, 27. 

OF death, the first step in the problem of human des- 
tiny, there can be no possible doubt. Of immortality, 
or the fact that our real being survives death, I think 
we may be well assured. That the spirit does not at once 
enter upon the fullness of its after-life or condition, but 
exists for a time in what the church has called the interme- 
diate state, has been in the main the faith of the church, and 
is possibly the actual truth. That there will in some sense 
be a resurrection of the dead, we sought to prove from the 
Scriptures and from reason, on last Sabbath evening. The 
point we sought to make was that man, who in the present 
life is the one being endowed with both a material and spirit- 
ual nature, who seems to be the connecting link between 
matter and divinity, will in the future continue to hold the 
same place. I now come to talk to you of the Judgment 
Day. In our text, the first part speaks of the dying of man 
as an event occurring under the operation of law or by ap- 
pointment. "It is appointed unto man once to die." And 



144: The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

in the same appointment, after death he is to be judged. 
When we have once taken the problem of destiny out of the 
realm of chance, and rested it upon law, we have gone a 
great way in the direction of the reasonable probability of 
the outcome of that destiny. If we are left to chance, we 
can only dwell forever in the domain of speculation. And 
if we can once ascertain the nature and bearing of those 
laws, we may calculate with considerable certainty on their 
results. We find the law which consigns us to dust to be one 
of ancient appointment, for, in the morning of our Adamic 
race, God said: "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou 
return." It was the simple announcement of a great law, and 
this law has silently, steadily, ceaslessly held on its way, not- 
withstanding all the efforts that man has made to avert it. 
Notwithstanding the learning, the wealth and the labor 
expended in the direction of resisting this law, it has, without 
seeming effort, taken the old and the young, the wise and the 
simple, the rich and the poor, and consigned them all to the 
dust of the grave. And it seems entirely probable that we 
shall find the judgment day to be ordered by law also. We 
shall find within ourselves, possibly, that on which the judg- 
ment day will turn and depend. Just as we find within us 
the elements on which the law of our dissolution depends, so 
we have about us mind, memory, conscience, and the sense 
of justice, and these seem to be the basis of a future judg- 
ment day. 

I shall pursue the same course that was followed last 
Sabbath evening — looking at the subject first in the light of 
the Scriptures, and then in the light of reason. I will read 



The Judgment Day. 145 

first from the 12th chapter of Ecclesiastes, 13th and 14th 
yerses : 

Let ns hear the conclusion of the whole matter : Fear God, and keep 
his commandments ; for this is the whole duty of man. 

For God shall bring every woi'k into judgment, with every secret 
thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil. 

Conclusions are usually reached late in life, and this seems 
to be the substance of the wise man's thought and experi- 
ence — looking over the whole of human life and conduct — 
that its importance was found in fearing God and keeping His 
commandments, and that the reason for this was the fact that 
God would bring every one into judgment. I will next read 
from the 25th chapter of St. Matthew, beginning with the 
21st verse : 

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angela 
with him, then shall he sit uiDon the throne of his glory : 

And before him shall be gathered all nations : and he shall separate 
them one from another, as a shepherd divideth liis sheep from the 
goats : 

And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. 

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye 
blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the 
foundation of the world : 

For I was ahungered, and ye gave me meat : T was thirsty, and ye 
gave me drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me in : 

Naked, and ye clothed me : I was sick, and ye visited me : I was in 
prison, and ye came unto me. 

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we 
thee ahungered, and fed thee ? or thirsty, and gave thee drink ? 

When saw wo thee a stranger, and took thee in ? or naked, and clothed 
thee? 

Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? 

And the King shaU answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto yon, 
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, 
ye have done it unto me. 

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand. Depart from me, 
10 



146 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels : 

For I was aliungered, and ye gave me no meat : I was thirsty, and yo 
gave me no drink : 

I was a stranger, and ye took me not in : naked, and ye clothed me 
not : sick, and in pnaon, and ye visited me not. 

Then shall they also answer him, saying, Loid, when saw we thee 
ahuiigered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and 
did not minister unto thee ? 

Then shall ho answer them, sajdng, Verily I say unto you. Inasmuch 
as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. 

The jjoint I want to malie from tliis Scripture is tliat the 
kind of judgment spoken of is a continuation of a life-history 
tliat begins in tliis Avorld. First, we iiave in this chapter the 
representation of the virgins who went forth to meet the 
bridegroom — the five wise ones who forecasted the future 
and m.ade ready for the occasion, and the five foolish who 
lived on in unconcern. Then we have the parable of the tal- 
ents, in Avhich it is said that the kingdom of heaven is like 
unto a man who went into a far country, giving to each of his 
servants talents according to his ability, and upon his return 
he called each servant to account for the talents entrusted to 
him. These talents may represent the different number of 
years we live ; to some are given ten years, to some twenty, 
to some forty, and it may be the jDarable teaches that we shall 
be called to a reckoning for the time placed at our disposal. 
Or the talents may represent the different conditions of life ; 
some have plenty of money, they are blessed with advanta,ge3 
for education, and have many oiDportunities for doing good ; 
while others are born to poverty and ignorance, and have but 
little povrer to benefit their fellows. Or they may represent 
the gradations of ability among men : some have great talents 



The Judgment Day, 147 

in the direction of song, in tlie direction of reason, of oratory, 
of love, of faith. Then possibly we shall be called to answer 
for the powers that are entrusted to ns in this world, the 
places of trnst we have held. And when it is asked in the 
last day, "Who are these that come np to pass before the 
Judge ? we must turn to the earth-history, and find there the 
starting point we seek. The talent-bearers all started down 
in the earth-life ; without the starting down here there would 
be no occasion for the judgment beyond. So it is that the 
judgment is not an isolated fact. It is rather a part of the 
history of this life. It grows out of the fact of man's account- 
ability in this life, out of the fact that man is on probation. 
I will read one verse from the 17th chapter of Acts ; 

Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world 
in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained ; whereof he hath 
given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. 

In this chapter the apostle is argumg that God winked at 
the times of past ignorance, but now commands all men 
to repent because He hath appointed a day in which He will 
judge the world. He bases the truth of tliis fact on the other 
fact that God has raised Christ from the dead. In our last 
discourse, you will remember, particular weight was laid on 
Paul's argument for the resurrection. The apostle based his 
whole argument for the resurrection of man on the resurrec- 
tion of Christ. This resurrection stands prominently in the 
argument, because the consequences that would follow if it 
were not true were such as to make any other conclusion im- 
possible. And here he makes the judgment an assured fact, 
because of, and as related to, the resurrection of Christ. If 



148 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

Christ is risen, then is the judgment a fact. I read next the 
10th verse of the 5th chapter of Second Corinthians : 

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that 
every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he 
hath done, whether it be good or bad. 

This verse is so clear and definite that I shall add no word 
to it. I will read two verses from the 4:tli chapter of Thessa- 
lonians : 

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with 
the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God : and the dead in 
Christ shall rise first. 

Then we which are ahve and remain shall be caught up together with 
them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air : and so shall we ever 
be with the Lord. 

I will read also a few verses from the 3d chapter of Second 
Peter, beginning with the 10th verse : 

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night ; in the 
which the heavens shaU pass away with a great noise, and the elements 
shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are 
therein shall be burned up. 

Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of 
persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness. 

Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein 
the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall 
melt with fervent heat ? 

Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and 
8 new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. 

In the verse from Thessalonians the coming of the Lord is 
represented to be heralded by the last trump, and attended 
by the rising of the dead, and there seems also to be the 
thought that at the last daj there is to be a dissolution of the 
structure of our earth. I am not certain, in my own mind, 
as to how much of this is to be taken in a figurative and how 



The Judgment Day, 149 

mnch in a literal sense. Of this, however, we may be snre, 
that even so great an event as the end of onr world is not at 
all improbable. It is not probable that God will always con- 
tinue the race on this earth in its present condition. When 
we tnrn to astronomy, our authors are full of teachings that 
there are burned-out worlds, that there are deaths of worlds 
as well as births of worlds. Dr. Clarke thinks there is a sci- 
entific accuracy in this picture of the destruction of our world 
at the last day. It is stated here, further, that *'the heavens 
shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall 
melt with fervent heat." It is a known fact that electricity is 
an agent that has the power to separate water into its com- 
ponent gases. Now the aerial heavens surrounding our earth 
support a great quantity of watery vapor. It is also known 
that the heavens are highly charged with electricity, and it is 
supposed that all that would be necessary to a literal fulfill- 
ment of this Scripture would be such an action of electricity 
upon the waters of the earth and the vapors in the clouds, as 
would resolve them back into their primitive gases, leaving 
the oxygen by itself and the hydrogen by itself. These prim- 
itive elements of water are highly inflammable and explosive. 
You put one drop of water on an anvil, and place over it a 
bar of hot iron, and strike it with a hammer, and there is a 
noise equal to the report of a gun. If this action of electricity 
on water be the method of the earth's final destruction, it is 
reasonable to suppose that there would be successive explo- 
sions of the particles of the waters composing the oceans and 
seas of the earth and the vapors of the clouds. And as these 
elements are highly inflammable, the earth might be wrapped 



150 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

in a great conflagration, even the ''elements melting with fer- 
vent lieat." ""We look for new heavens and a new earth." 
Nothing is finally destroyed. Out of the fiery ordeal a heaven 
and an earth, grander and more beautiful, shall arise, in 
which righteousness shall dwell. 

There is one more Scripture I will read, and then pass to 
consider the subject in another light. In the 20th chapter of 
Revelation, 11th and 12th verses, we have this Scripture : 

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose 
face the earth and the heaven fled away : and there was found no place 
for them. 

And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the 
books were opened ; and another book was opened, which is the book 
of life : and the dead were judged out of those things which were writ- 
ten in the books, according to their works. 

Before passing to look at the subject in the light of reason, 
I want to give an example of how it was viewed by the 
ancients. I quote from memory from the writings of Plato. 
It is recorded in the book of Plato called the Georgias, that 
Socrates, in his disputations with the Skeptics on the things 
that lie beyond this life, gives this legend : That the custom 
used to be to judge men before they died, but that complaints 
reached the earth in regard to the judgments passed here, 
both from the Elysian fields and from the regions of Pluto. 
It was said that j)ersons would arrive in the Elysian planes 
whose character was such as not to merit everlasting bliss ; 
and, on the other hand, persons were sent to the regions of 
Pluto who did not deserve endless punishment. Hearing 
these complaints, the gods took counsel together, and rea- 
soned that it is not well to judge men in this life, because 



The Judgment Bay, 151 

around their death-beds may assemble influences that onght 
not to weigh at such a time and on such a matter — the influ- 
ence of money, of intellect, of social standing, of friendship. 
Moreover, you may not be able to get accurately at the true 
worth of their lives. After due deliberation, therefore, the 
gods resolved to remove the power of judgment from the 
earth, and appointed three judges : one for Asia, one for 
Africa, and one for Europe — Khadamanthus, Minos, and 
Eachus. These judges were stationed in the meadow just 
beyond life, where the paths met and parted, and the dead 
came unto them, not in the body -form, but as spirits. It was 
argued that if a man be large before death, his body will be 
large after death. If he be beautiful before death, he will be 
beautiful after death. If his body be coarse in life, so will he 
be after death. If it has received scars in this life, it will 
carry those scars after death. And so of the soul : if in this 
life it be coarse or refined, good or bad, if it be pure and 
beautiful or scarred and diseased — whatever it be in this life, 
it will be the same after death. When a soul came into the 
presence of these judges, they knew not whether it was a rich 
man or a poor man, king or peasant. All they saw was the 
character, and they judged only by the character ; and so 
judging, no more complaints reached the world of unjust 
judgments. I have related this as an instance from classical 
literature of the thought of the ancient mind as to the final 
judgment. 

I want now to look at the subject in the light of reason. 
Among the sentiments of which we are conscious, that of jus- 
tice is prominent — the sentiment of right, the feeling that in 



152 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

some way justice should be aiid will be accorded to all. This 
sentiment is so strong that, if it have permission to speak, it 
will not rest if injustice be done to any, or if any fail to have 
justice accorded to them. It is also felt that the judgments 
of this world are uncertain, that justice is not and cannot 
always be meted out to men on earth. Lawyers are familiar 
with cases where men, after an impartial trial, have been sen- 
tenced to death and executed, and after all facts have come to 
light that proved theii' innocence. And it is not enough that 
the juries that convicted them have gone out and planted tho 
white flag above their graves ; they could not undo what they 
had done. Beason points to a higher tribunal, where there 
can be no mistakes ; where final and even justice shall be 
done to all. It points to the future for this judgment, from 
the fact that in the present the proofs are not all at hand. 
God is in a sense judging men all the time ; and men are 
julging themselves, as they array themselves on one side or 
the other of great principles. But the influence of our lives 
does not terminate with life itself, and until all the influences 
of each life can be determined, there can be no final judg- 
ment. Take the lives of Thomas Paine and John Wesley. 
Paine was an infidel, possibly an honest infidel. He has been 
greatly abused by the church. He wrote many things that 
have been very injurious to the human mind. He set many 
influences at work in this world for error that have not yet 
been arrested, and may not be arrested till the end of time. 
It is imi^ossible to judge Thomas Paine and mete out justice 
according to the deeds done in the body till the final influ- 
ence of his writings may be estimated. John Wesley labored 



The Judgment Day, 163 

in another direction. He labored to build up faith, not to 
tear it down ; he believed in the Bible, and worked for God, 
and not till time shall be no more can all the sweet and holy 
influences he set in motion be estimated in the good they 
have wrought for the human family. Take Alexander, whose 
ambition led him to a career of conquest that drenched the 
world in blood, and whose example has not yet ceased to have 
its influence on the human mind ; or Napoleon, whose ambi- 
tion filled Europe with war. None of us can estimate the 
good or the evil we may have done till the influence of our 
life here is seen in the last day. Hence, while the sentiment 
of justice demands an impartial judgment, reason pushes that 
judgment into the far future. 

Reason argues the methods oi judgment from an analysis 
of the human mind and heart. We read in Eevelation of the 
opening of books, and of the dead being judged out of these 
books. I think the meaning of this is not that God has angels 
who keep actual books, recording thereia all human events, 
but that there is a great book of God kept in each human 
heart. These books are the books of our own nature. There 
is the book of memory, and the book of conscience. Take 
memory, that power which conserves all that the mind has 
received, the thoughts as well as the events of the past. We 
may suppose that the great bulk of what we have learned is 
in time forgotten. The probability is that nothing of what is 
once lodged in the mind is lost. Sir William Hamilton gives 
many instances of the marvelous power of memory. He tells 
of a Corsican youth, noted for this faculty, who was brought 
before judges and put to a test of his power. Men read for 



154 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

hours in various languages, and when thej were all done, this 
youth went on and repeated, word for word, all that had been 
read. There are instances of persons being able to repeat 
hundreds of verses read in their hearing. Even the slightest 
impressions upon the mind are never wholly lost. There is a 
case recorded in medical books of a young lady who was 
taken ill, and who, while in delirium, talked in Latin, Greek 
and Hebrew. She had never studied those languages, and 
the people were amazed. It was supposed she was inspired. 
Scientific men investigated the matter, and found that some 
years before she had been servant to a clergyman. A German 
scholar was called in, who took down these utterances, and it 
was ascertained that they were quotations from ancient au- 
thors, which the girl had heard the clergyman repeat as he 
walked back and forth in his study. There are instances of 
persons nearly losing their lives by drowning, where the mind 
is so aroused in the moment of peril that all the events of the 
past spring at once to the foreground. Now, if what I am 
saying be true, and it seems to be founded on the nature of 
mind, we carry within us the great book of memory, and 
memory has only to turn her pages to the long-lost and for- 
gotten deeds that have been done, to the words spoken in 
anger, to the profane speech or the heartfelt prayer, to the 
words of kindness and the deeds of love. They may seem to 
have passed from memory, yet will they stand out in con- 
sciousness in the last day. 

Take conscience, that strange monitor whose office is to dis- 
approve that which the mind thinks is wrong, to approve that 
which the mind thinks is right ; which is ever impelling us in 



The Judgment Day. 155 

the direction of right, and holding us back from wrong. Take 
the book of conscience along with the book of memory, and 
as the pages of memory are turned, and the deeds therein 
recorded are pointed out, conscience will be there present, 
saying: "There I cautioned you against the approach of 
temptation ; there I condemned that angry word, that wicked 
thought, that evil deed ; there I approved that act of charity, 
that word of kindness." We have the elements of judgment 
within us. We carry about us the records on which we will 
be judged in the last day. And reason and revelation both 
point to the solemn fact that each one, however he may seek 
to hide away from himself, or from his God, must at last 
stand face to face with all he has thought or done; must 
stand face to face with conscience and the highest sense of 
right. The hour will come when the darkness can no longer 
conceal, and when the noise of passion can no longer drown 
the voice of judgment. Oh ! what shall it be to be alone 
with memory, alone with conscience ! The everlasting prin- 
ciples of justice will bring us each to that tribunal sooner or 
later. 

I have said that we cannot tell what will be the outward 
attendants of the judgment day. We cannot tell whether this 
final trump is that which arouses the consciences of men, or 
whether it is some great awakening that shall call forth the 
dead ; or whether the throne of God shall be erected in mid- 
heavens, or in the chambers of the soul. The central point is 
that there is to be a judgment where all shall answer for tha 
deeds done in the body and justice be done to each one. In 
this there is certainly something that commends itself to all 



156 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

right-minded people. There is nothing in the judgment day 
that should fill candid-minded, prayerful men with fear. I 
believe that God is father, God is love ; Christ is brother, 
Christ is judge. And though my life may not have been all 
that it could have been or that it should have been, I am not 
unwilling that that life shall go before God. There is some- 
thing remarkable in man's heart in its readiness to go to God. 
Men v/ill turn to God in the supreme moments of their lives, 
the moments of great anguish or profound joy, when they 
will not turn to each other. They know that. His judgments 
;».re true and righteous. Let me entreat you, then, to be care- 
ful of this great book of memory. Write on its leaves such 
lines as you v/ould have read in the last day. Put on its pages 
such pictures as the ages may look at and be the better for 
seeing. Fill it up with good thoughts, good words, good 
deeds. So live in an approving conscience as to merit the 
approval of the Great Judge. So live that conscience will 
approve now, and you need not fear what conscience will say 
in the great day. 



XII. 

THE QUESTION OF FUTUEE PUNISHMENT. 



And these shall go away into everlasting punishment : but the right- 
eous into life eternal.— Matthew, xxv, 46. 

WE have reached a point in these discourses, my 
friends, when it seems not only proper but necessary 
to consider the question of future punishment. The 
theme is not a pleasant one. We naturally turn aside from 
the contemplation of suffering, and in these discourses I 
would gladly pass this subject in silence did the interests of 
truth permit. But we must bring ourselves to the task of 
looking at both the pleasant and the unpleasant phases of the 
different questions we would study ; and take whatever view 
we may of this subject, it is not free from difficulty. There is 
a darkness that hangs about the problem of evil that is not 
readily dissipated, whether considered as to its origin, its 
progress, or its final issue. The wisest and best of our world 
have not been able to agi*ee as to its solution. It has long 
been in controversy, and will probably continue in contro- 
versy ; and possibly, from the controversial standpoint, each 
party could wish that truth were on their side. It is, how- 
ever, a much higher and better thing for us all to desire to be 



158 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

on the side of trutli. It is better to be on the side of truth 
than to plant ourselves on some proposition, and then want 
truth to come on our side. For we must remember that truth 
will endure. It is not affected by our views concerning it. 
Whatever may be my views in reference to any g en fact, the 
fact remains. My belief or unbelief cannot change it. 

"Were we for the first time in life to stand in the presence of 
an array of men drawn up with poiated guns, and look upon 
the victim about to receive their deadly aim, our sympathies 
would at once turn to that man, and we would say that he 
should be released. Were we to look for the first time at the 
law, through its officers, arresting, condemning, sentencing, 
and then executing a culprit, our sympathies would at once 
say, " Kelease that man ! Don't take his life ! " Had we from 
some fairy world come down to this earth on a bright spring 
day, and should we, while looking out on every scene of 
beauty, journey by the jail, and should we be told that hun- 
dreds of men were there locked in behind iron doors, we 
would at once say, '' Set them free ! " But not till we should 
be brought to see these circumstances in. all their bearings in 
the light of the facts of this world, should we be in a condi- 
tion to judge correctly. Not till we should know all the facts 
that lie back of war and crime, could we decide whether it 
were best for that man to be shot, whether it were best for 
those men in prison to be set free. So of the subject we are 
now to consider. We must not project our thoughts into 
the far beyond, and there consider the subject of after-death 
punishment as an abstraction. The question, in any broad 
sense, can be studied only in its relation to facts both human 



The Question of Future Punishment. 159 

and divine. It can be studied in a broad sense only when we 
remember tliat there is such a thing as right, such a thing as 
wrong ; that right is not an arbitrary dictation of some sover- 
eign power, but is something that resides in the very nature 
nature of things. "We must also recognize the other fact, that 
there is such a thing in this world as sin. We must recog- 
nize the fact, too, of a divinely established government ; that 
not only has God established laws by which he rules the nat- 
ural world, but there is also a moral law, and that God has 
come forth in this world in organized government ; that this 
government is for the prevention of wrong, for the protection 
of right, and the preservation of order in His dominions. 
And I think, if we would look at the subject fairly and under- 
standingiy, we must recognize still another fact : that men 
are forming character here, and that with this character they 
are passing beyond into the other state. 

If the subject had never been raised before, and we had 
proceeded thus far in its consideration, the question would 
arise : What is the condition in the other world of the un- 
good ? And would we not be led to suppose that there would 
be a diSerence in that world between the good and the bad ? 
It is not, however, a new question, and it has gathered about 
itself no little literature. It is not only interesting to know 
what is true, but to know what men have thought to be true ; 
and so it may be both instructive and profitable to dwell for 
a time on the theories that have been and still are held on 
this subject. First, there is the theory of what are called the 
orthodox churches. That theory, briefly stated, is the theory 
of endless punishment. It is held not only by what are 



160 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

known as the orthodox churches of the Protestant faith, but 
is also the doctrine of the Roman Catholic church. Though 
it is true that the Catholic church holds to the theory of a 
period of after-death probation, or purgatory, it teaches the 
doctrine of endless suffering. I will read a few texts from the 
Scriptures upon which this doctrine has usually been based. 
The first is the text from which I am speaking : "And these 
shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous 
into life eternal." The argument here is that the same Greek 
word is employed to state the duration of the punishment of 
the wicked that is used to state the duration of the happiness 
of the righteous. If the doctrine of endless punishment is 
taught anywhere in the Bible, it is taught here ; and this text 
does seem to fairly teach it. And yet it is but just to state 
that not a few good scholars claim that the words may be 
fairly rendered, and that the meaning is, that souls shall go, 
not into unending punishment, but into the punishment of 
eternity, and the life of eternity, as carried over and distin- 
guished from the punishments and rewards of time. It is a 
fact, also, that the word translated "punishment" carries the 
idea of clipping or pruning, of restriction, or restraint, of 
chastisement, and this would seem to be for the purpose of 
improvement. Then there is the text found in the 9th chapter 
of Mark, 43d to the 4:8th verse : 

And if tliy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter 
into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fir* 
that never shall be quenched : 

Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. 

And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter 
halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that 
never shall be quenched ; 



Tlie Quedloii of Future PunishmenU 161 

Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. 

And if thine eye ofteud thee, pluck it out : it is better for thee to enter 
into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast 
into hell fire : 

Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. 

Then there are the 28th and 29th verses of the 5th chapter 
of St. Johu : 

Marvel not at this : for the hour is coming in the which all that are in 
the graves shall hear his voice, 

And shall come forth : they that have done good, unto the resurrec- 
tion of life ; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection ol 
damnation. 

Then there is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, 
recorded in the 16th chapter of Luke. The substance of the 
X^arable is that there -were two men, one living in wealth and 
ease, and the other a beggar at his gate. The beggar died 
and "was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. The 
rich man also died, and was buried, and in hell, being in tor- 
ment, and seeing Lazarus afar off, he cried that he might 
come and bring him relief. But Abraham answered him, say- 
ing there was an impassable gulf between him and Lazarus. 

There is another class of Scriptures, which teach that cer- 
tain sins exclude from the kingdom of heaven. The first I 
read is from First Corinthians, 6th chapter, 9th and 10th 
verses : 

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of 
God? Be not deceived : neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulter- 
ers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 

Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortion- 
ers, shall inherit the Idugdom of God. 

And similar teaching is found in Galatians, 5th chapter, the 
19th to the 21st verse : 
11 



162 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these : adultery, 
fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 

Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, sedi- 
tions, heresies, 

Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such hke : of the 
which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that 
they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 

From Epliesians, 5tli chapter, 5th verse, I read : 

For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor cov- 
etous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of 
Christ and of God. 

From the 21st chapter of Revelation, I read the 27th verse : 

And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither 
whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a he : but they which are 
written in the Lamb's book of hfe. 

These are some of the texts on which this doctrine of endless 
punishment has been based. I would state, however, that 
there is not a practical agreement among teachers of the ortho- 
dox school as to the grounds of this punishment. Dr. Bledsoe, 
the author of "Theodicy," a work of great strength and 
merit, says it is not strange that men have found themselves 
unable to believe in the doctrine of endless misery, because it 
has been based upon the sins of this life, and it is unreasona- 
ble to suppose that the sins of the brief life of man here will 
receive an eternity of punishment. The only true ground for 
eternal punishment, he says, is the ground of eternal sinning ; 
and he holds that men will sin eternally, and therefore they 
will in justice suffer eternally. I think Dr. Bledsoe's argu- 
ment breaks down in this : he teaches that it is not for the 
sins of this life, but for eternal sinning that men will receive 
endless punishment. Now if it is not a fact that the sins of 
this life so determine character that men will as a consequence 



The Question of Future Punishment. 163 

sin forever, then in the other state men may reach a point 
where they will cease sinning, and then according to his own 
theory their punishment will come to an end ; but if the sins 
of this life necessitate endless sinning, then it is virtually the 
deeds done in the body for which men are to be punished 
eternally. 

Dr. Landis, in his work on immortality, holds to the doc- 
trine that it is for the sins of this life that men are to sufifer 
eternally. The general argument advanced in behalf of this 
doctrine is briefly this : that God is judge as well as father ; 
that justice is an attribute of His character as well as love and 
mercy ; that the period of probation looking to the develop- 
ment of character must, in the nature of things, have an end 
some time ; and that however long you may make that proba- 
tion, whether it be seventy or seventy thousand years, to be a 
probation, it must some time come to an end ; and whenever 
it does end, then beyond that is eternity. 

I now pass from these general statements of the theories 
of eternal punishment to another doctrine held on this sub- 
ject — the doctrine of the Universalist church. The old school 
Universalists taught that there was salvation immediately 
after death for all souls. They seem to have had the thought 
that sinning related solely to the things of this life, and that 
when the spirit left the body it was freed from the conse- 
quences of sin and went at once into happiness. The later 
school of Universalists hold to an after-death punishment, but 
to final salvation. There are two routes by which they reach 
their result. One is the Calvinistic route. The Calvinists 
teach, and the Westminster confession of faith teaches, that 



164 Hie Origin and Destiny cf Man. 

all for whom Christ died will certainly be saved. The Calvin- 
istic branch of UniversaUsts take the Bible and very easily 
prove that Christ died for all j then they logically reach the 
conclusion that all will be saved. I am very frank to say that 
if I were a Calvinist, I could not be less than a Universalist. 
The other route leads its travelers by the freedom of the 
human will. They hold that all punishment must be correc- 
tive ; that the object of its infliction must be refprmatory. 
Adding this to the thought of the sovereignty of God, and 
the thought of the infinite love of God, and they claim that 
men will some time reach a point where they will cease to sin; 
ceasing to sin, they will begin to rise ; rising, they will ulti- 
mately reach the plane of perfect bliss. The main difficulty that 
I see in this doctrine — admitting after-death probation — is 
this: how can you certainly predicate in regard to a free being 
that there will be a reform in conduct and character ? I will 
bring to your notice a few of the texts on which UniversaUsts 
found their belief. The first is the parable of the prodigal 
son. I will not read it, as it is somewhat lengthy, and all are 
familiar with it. It represents a younger and an elder son. 
The younger leaves his home and goes out into the world to 
seek his fortune, falling into evil courses, and wasting his 
substance in riotous living. When he is reduced to poverty 
and distress, thoughts come to him of his far-off" home, and 
he resolves to return thither, ready to be a servant in his 
father's house if that be permitted him. But his father, 
gladdened by the sight of his long-lost son, receives him with 
great rejoicing, and makes a feast in his honor. It is reasoned 
from this parable that our Heavenly Father will forever be 



The Question of Future Punishment, 165 

looking out for the return of His wandering children from all 
worlds, ready to receive them with open arms. Then there is 
the 22d verse of the 15th chapter of First Corinthians : 

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall aU be made alive. 

They argue from this, that, whatever may be the death in 
Adam, there is set over against it the life all have in Christ. 
There are also the 9th and 10th verses of the 1st chapter of 
Ephesians : 

Having made known unto us the mystery of his wiU, according to his 
good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself : 

That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather 
together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and 
which are on earth ; even in him. 

Their argument is that the purpose of God is to gather in 

Christ all things, whether in heaven or on earth. I will also 

read from the 2d chapter of Phillippians, the 9th and 10th 

verses : 

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name 
which is above every name : 

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in 
heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth. 

And from the 1st chapter of Colossians, the 19th and 20th 

verses : 

For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell : 

And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to 

reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things 

in earth or things in heaven. 

I have thus given you some of the Scriptures on which both 
parties rest their arguments. I can, of course, in this hour, 
give only by suggestion their arguments. The next doctrine 
I would call your attention to is the doctrine of annihilation. 
You may remember that in our discourse on the intermediate 



166 Tlie Origin and Destiny of Man. 

state we referred to the teachings of those who claim that, 
when a man dies, he enters a state of unconsciousness. This 
same school claims that in the resurrection both the good and 
the bad shall be raised, and that after judgment the good 
shall go into happiness and the wicked into annihilation. 
Their argument is that immortality is not a natural necessity, 
and that if a soul is not endowed with immortality by coming 
in contact with perfect goodness in the person of Christ, it 
passes into non-existence. I confess to you, my friends, there 
is not a little that seems to favor this doctrine. Probably 
none of us believe in the necessary immortality of the soul. 
Probably all of us believe that immortality is conferred by the 
will and purpose of God ; and if souls are held in being by 
the purpose of God, if probation prove a failure, there being 
no hope of ultimate reformation, it does not seem unreasonable 
that they may be permitted to drop into non-existence. I 
say, from the standpoint of reason, there is not a little to 
favor this theory. 

Then there is the doctrine of the New or Swedenborgian 
Church, which teaches that, as we pass through this life, we 
develop what is termed a preponderance of character for good 
or evil, and that this character becomes our life. This char- 
acter may not reveal itself fully and clearly before the world. 
A man may seem to be good in the eyes of his fellows, and 
yet away down in the depths of his soul he may not be a good 
man. Or his character may carry many outward signs of evil, 
and yet he may have every wish to do right. Swedenborg 
teaches that what we want to be is what we will be. If a man 
wants to be good, his nature will gradually and surely be 



The Question of Future Punishment. 167 

brought to goodness. If the germ of his being be evil, when 
he dies he is the thing he wants to be. Swedenborg claims 
that you cannot change this tendency after death without 
annihilating the being, this love, whether it be of good or 
evil, being the life. He teaches that, while there is endless 
su£fering, it is not of that unmitigated character that is 
usually supposed. He makes the hell of the wicked the best 
condition that is possible for them. His thought is, they will 
be cared for much after the manner that our governments 
here find it necessary to look after convicted criminals. While 
we shut them up in prison, we make their condition in con- 
finement as tolerable as may be under the circumstances. So 
he claims that the future condition of the wicked is not one 
of unmitigated suffering. It is the best that God can do for 
them. But as the very germ of their being is evil in its 
essence, their life is fixed forever on that plane. 

Then there is the theory of Dr. Bushnell, in whom I have 
great confidence as a clear thinker and sincere man, and yet 
I think his teaching on this point is very strange. He holds 
to the doctrine of endless punishment, but on a diminishing 
or descending scale. Say that the agony of the soul may now 
be ten — in the next generation it descends to nine, in the next 
to eight, and thus gradually drops down to zero, or to the 
point of unconsciousness. In a word, his thought is that the 
wicked will finally become as burned-out cinders — startling 
monuments of the consequences of sin. They are to be held 
in being, yet at a point of consciousness so low as to be 
scarcely worthy to be called life or conscious of their misery. 

Others hold to the doctrine of endless punishment m this 



168 The Origin and DesHny of Man. 

light ; that it is a dark background of misery, into which free 
beings may be forever plunging, and from which they may be 
forever emerging, and there will be endless misery, but not 
for the same souls. Souls may plunge into this dark back- 
ground, and they may emerge out of it. Then there is the 
theory that endless suffering will be the feeling of endless loss 
that all will experience who have wasted opportunities of 
serving God, who have buried the talents confided to them. 
There will be never-ending regret in the thought that they 
cannot be in the life eternal what they would have been had 
they improved these wasted opportunities. 

Turning from the various theories that haive obtained on 
this subject, you may now want me to tell you my own views, 
afld I have no reserve in expressing them. In the first place, 
I believe in the eternal and immutable distinctions between 
right and wrong. I 1 elieve in the everlasting principles of 
right. In the second place, I believe that the laws of God 
are unchangeable, and that the laws of God in this world and 
in all worlds are the same ; that the same laws that abide here 
will abide yonder, now and forever ; that what is right in this 
world is right yonder, and what is wrong here is wrong there. 
I believe, further, that there is what in moral philosophy is 
called the law of sequences, that certain results follow certain 
courses of conduct ; if a certain act be performed, a certain 
result will follow — it may be immediately or it may be long 
delayed ; and that the laws of sequence are as immutable and 
as certain as the law of gravity or any law of chemistry or of 
the natural world. Believing these things, it seems to me 
that both heaven and hell begin in this world. Men begin 



The Question of Future Punishment. 169 

the formation of character in this life. They array themselves 
on the one side or the other of these great principles ; they 
become, as it were, parts of right or parts of wrong ; they 
have characters which assimilate to the right or to the wrong, 
according to the nature of their desires and associations ; and 
with these characters men are passing through the gates that 
open into the endless beyond. Believing this, I have not a 
shadow of doubt of after-death suffering for men who die 
in sin. The opposite of this would be to me illogical and 
unreasonable. 

But the great question you would ask is, Will this punish- 
ment be eternal ? The answer depends on the answer to two 
other questions : First, will there be, after death, a period of 
probation that will probably eventuate in a reformation of 
character ? The Scriptures are painfully silent on this subject 
of an after-death probation. While there is less than is gen- 
erally supposed to teach that there will not be a future proba- 
tion, they nowhere, as I can see, affirm that there will be. I 
would not, for my right arm, lead any soul to believe there is 
an after-death probation. I do not know the fact. Nor am 
I able to affirm certainly that there may not be. I do not 
know what changes may be effected as the soul journeys on. 
I can only say, while there is nothing that would positively 
encourage the thought of a probation beyond the grave, there 
is nothing which positively forbids the thought. After years 
of study, and an agony on this subject, that none but myself 
can understand, I can only say, I don't know ; and I am very 
certain that no one else knows. Nor is it essential that we do 
know, or even believe in endless punishment in order to be 



170 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

Christians. It is a risk I ask no soul to take. The other 
question is : If there be a probation, -will it certainly eventu- 
ate in the reformation of character ? If it will, then the doc- 
trine of Universalism will be true. But holding, as I do, to 
the doctrine of the freedom of the human soul, I cannot cer- 
tainly predict the turning around of a free being. I cannot 
say with certainty that some time it will turn from the wrong 
and do the right. We hear people say : "Oh, if I could have 
another trial, I would live differently;" or, "If I could live 
my life over again, I would live abetter life." You do not 
know the fact. If there be another trial, and another and an- 
other, each trial must begin where the other left off. If there 
be a trial after death, that trial must begin where the other 
ends ; and if the life lived here have sent its roots down into 
lust, or if it have perverted its powers of truth and justice, it 
must begin the next world just as it leaves this. So that I 
cannot say, if there be a probation, that it will certainly mean 
reformation ; nor can I say that it will not be a reformation. 
Admitting the doctrine of the soul's freedom, I do not see 
how any man can form an opinion as to what will certainly be 
the result. Of this I am certain — that so long as there is sin- 
ning, so long there will be suffering. If men die in sin, they 
will suffer after death. If men sin in the future, they will 
suffer in the future. There can be no heaven without purity. 
As to the nature of future punishment, I do not and cannot 
believe in a literal lake of fire, into which human souls are 
plunged to burn forever. I do not and cannot believe in the 
terrible ideas of hell that have come down to us from the 
sensuous past, such as the representations of Dante, Mil- 



The Question of Future Punishment. Ill 

ton, Pollock and Allien's Alarm. Such severe literalism, such 
awful pictures of torment, are enough to negate the idea 
of God. That a God of love could so torment His lost chil- 
dren, or any sentient beings, is absolutely unthinkable. Nor 
can I believe in a punishment that is wrathful or vindictive. 
I must forever stand by the thought of the Eternal Goodness. 
To me it seems that it is more a suffering than a punishment 
that comes upon lost souls — a suffering of the consequences 
of wrong-doing, and of the deep sense of loss of what they 
might have been, but are not. And then there may be the 
raging of angry passions, and the fire of human lusts, and th@ 
dark companionships of evil spirits. Such a hell we can read- 
ily conceive ; men carry it out of this world with them, and 
in some such suffering mankind can easily enough believe. 
But there is evidently a very general turning away of the 
public mind from the cruel ideas that have come down to us 
from tlie darkness of the past. To preach such a hell now 
is either to disgust sensible men with the idea of religion, or 
drive them into infidelity. "While God reigns and the love 
of justice lives in human breasts, there must be some respect 
to what is reasonable and right, even in our ideas of hell. But 
the reaction from the old view is likely to carry us too far in 
the opposite direction. We are in danger of losing the strength 
and character that can come only from a proper conception of 
law and justice and reward and penalty, and lapsing into a 
weak and irresponsible sentimentalism. The ideas of law 
and penalty cannot, with safety either to the individual or to 
society, be let go in any world. They are founded in fact, 
and must be held fast in theory. In parting from the old and 



172 The Origin and Destiny of Man, 

over-statements concerning future punishment, we are in dan- 
ger of losing sight of the truth that still remains. The real 
hell of the Bible is certainly as much a fact now, and as much 
to be feared now, as ever, and as such should be preached 
from every pulpit. And it is to be feared that not a few min- 
isters, feeling unable in a good conscience to state the doc- 
trine in the old way, and dreading to encounter the criticism 
and the cry of "heresy" that would come upon them if they 
preached a modified view, say nothing at all. 

I have detained you fully as long as I ought in the discus- 
sion of this painful subject. Let me bid you look to a higher 
and different ground or motive. I assure you that, if any soul 
dreams of going to heaven on the slender hope that there 
may be a trial after death, and on that hope continues the 
love and practice of sin, that soul is very far from heaven. 
That soul has got to reach a point of character that turns from 
the wrong because it is wrong, that leaves the wrong and 
clings to the right. It must be so in the nature of things. If 
you would be sure of a blessed life hereafter, turn in this life 
to the right. Do right for the sake of right, and not from 
the low motive of evading punishment. The highest type of 
virtue is that which turns away from wrong with aversion, 
and cleaves to the good because it is good. There is darkness 
along the way of sin, so far as we can see, here and hereafter. 
The wisest way is to break with sin in this world. Unite 
yourselves to the right here, and enjoy the hope of endless 
life in the regions of right hereafter. 



XIII. 



THE HEAVENLY WOELD. 



In my father's house are many mansions : if it were not so, I would 
have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. — St. John, xiv, 2. 

But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly : wherefore 
God is not ashamed to be called their God : for he hath prepared for 
them a city. — Hebrews, xi, 16. 

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes ; and there shall be 
no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any 
more pain : for the former things are passed away. — Kevelation, 
XXI, 4. 

THUS, my friends, from the light that comes from this 
word of God do we catch gHmpses of the world and the 
glory beyond. I say glimpses, for I think it is not given 
to any of us to discern with clearness the outlines even, much 
less with fullness of detail, all that may await us in the after- 
life. It is not strange, indeed, that there is a vagueness in 
our conception of the future life and world. This arises 
partly from the fact that in this life we are so limited aa to 
time. We remain here but sixty or eighty years at most, and 
during that brief period we are narrowly conditioned as to 
space and as to the working of our imperfect senses. We 
dwell here upon the ground, pressed down by a heavy ocean 
of atmosphere. We see but little ; we hear but imperfectly ; 



174 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

our feelings are blunt ; our perceptions are not clear. So it is 
not strange that when we attempt to look into that which is 
beyond it is vague to many of us. This comes again, I think, 
from what I might call the improper method of looking at 
the life to come. The habit of many in considering the ques- 
tion of the other life, is to wholly let go of this world and this 
life, and then to try to project themselves some how into the 
future, and to build around them the conditions of another 
state of being ; and it is often the case that in letting go of 
this life, we fail to grasp the life and the world beyond. A 
more natural and rational way of trying to pass over in 
thought the bridge-way between the two states of being is 
not to let go of this life nor of this world, but to think of this 
life as living on, of the world as enduring, and of the soul as 
passing right on through what we call death without any 
break in its journey. My object in this discourse will be, 
partly, to try to make the future world and the heavenly life 
seem real to us, and partly to suggest by outline the possible 
and more probable conditions of that world and that life, 
leaving each one to construct his own heaven out of these 
conditions. 

In order that we may make the heavenly world seem real, 
we pursue the scriptural line of thought, thinking of it as a 
real place, a material condition ; or, in the words of our 
texts, considering it under the thought of a country, of many 
mansions, of a city. There should be more about these 
thoughts than mere words ; they should have a definite mean- 
ing. There should be something in the thought of a country 
that corresponds to the meaning that we give to the word in 



The Heavenly World. 175 

this life ; something in the thought of mansions that corres- 
ponds to the thought of mansions here; something in the 
thought of a city that may correspond to the idea of a city 
here. The Scriptures speak of the heavenly world not only 
as a country, as a city, as a place, but they speak of it as 
something far better than anything we have in these con- 
ditions here. The Scriptures take the best things of the 
earth, as the land of Canaan, the city of Zion, the most valu- 
able minerals, the most precious stones — they take all the 
best things of this world, and then lead us to think there is 
something better still in the future. Now in thinking of our 
world, we shall be mistaken if we suppose that the highest 
possible degi'ee of perfection as a world is here attained. 
Indeed, this world, so far as relates to its physical appoint- 
ments, is a very imperfect world. It has passed through 
periods of still greater imperfection, and it still falls far 
beneath the thought of what a perfect God may do to say 
this is the most perfect world that souls shall ever dwell 
upon. There have been periods in our earth's history when 
it existed simply as a fiery ball. There was a time when it 
roUed on in darkness. There was a time when it was cov- 
ered with water ; a time when its continents were not lifted 
up, when the greater portions of the earth's surface were but 
marshes ; when there was no dry land, no hard wood, no 
flowering plant, no fruiting tree. Had some one lived upon 
the earth at that time, he might even then have thought it a 
fair world. But the earth traveled steadily on along the line 
of development, progressing onward toward perfection, and 
we are not at all warranted in thinking that there is not to be 



176 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

a more perfect condition of this earth, or more perfect worlds 
beyond this. Nature, in its wonderful processes, takes the 
dullest and most imperfect things, and builds out of them the 
finest and most precious. The diamond is produced out of 
common carbon ; the polished marble is but an outgrowth of 
the rough limestone. Thus our world seems to be traveling 
along its appointed way towards a perfection it has not yet 
reached. There are worlds outside of this, that may be far 
more perfect than this. Our poor earth journeys on with but 
one moon as an attendant, and that is shown to us only half 
of each month. We know that Jupiter has four moons, and 
that Saturn has eight, and we can easily conceive that on the 
plains of those far-off planets there is a beauty in the night- 
time of which we have no knowledge here. We know not 
what may be the physical perfection of some of the worlds 
in God's universe. We know not but that the fairest flowers 
that bloom here are only types of the flowers that bloom else- 
where ; that the most beautiful rivers, the fairest landscapes, 
the loftiest mountains, the greatest oceans, are but the begin- 
nings of what shall be in God's material universe. 

The Scriptures not only warrant us in the thought that 
there is to be a material heaven, but they speak of it under 
the thought of many mansions. A theory held by many is 
that it is to be this earth redeemed and purified. Another 
theory, advanced by Dr. Dick, is that, as our sun is five hun- 
dred times larger than all its planets, so all the stars in the 
heavens may possibly have a common centre, about which all 
revolve, and which is proportionately greater than all of them 
together. This great central world he denominates the throne 



The Heavenly Wor^ld. 177 

of God, the capital of the universe. Astronomers now look 
to the beautiful star Alcyone, in the Pleiades, as this possible 
centre of the entire universe. It seems to me that, under the 
thought of many mansions, the most reasonable conception 
of the future world would be that it is not only this earth 
renewed and made more perfect; that it is not only the 
planets of the solar system, and the stars that deck the sky ; 
not only this, but the vast universe of material worlds — sys- 
tems rising above systems, worlds ranging beyond worlds, till 
the whole universe is spanned. This is what I think is meant 
by the language of Scripture, that "in God's house are many 
mansions." The whole universe is God's house, and its 
many worlds are its many mansions. 

Let us now take up, as another thought, ourselves, and see 
what we may possibly be in relation to the future world and 
to each other. According to the theories that I have been 
advancing in these discourses, we look upon death as some- 
thing that severs our relations with material things, but we 
expect these bodies to be in some way or in some sense 
restored to us in the resurrection. So it is competent for us 
to think of ourselves in the heavenly world as having bodies 
corresponding to our bodies here ; bodies that will bring us 
into relation with material things by the senses — by touch 
and sight and hearing. In this thought our life in the heav- 
enly world will not be a sublimated experience, abstracted 
from the material universe ; but in the development and 
exaltation of the senses we may have conceptions of beauty 
and perfection in the heavenly material world of which we 
do not now dream. It is reasonable to suppose that our 
12 



178 The Origin and Destiny of Alan. 

bodies will enjoy many blessings in the future state that we 
have not here. These will come in their more perfect devel- 
opment. Take the power of sight. Very remarkable indeed 
is it that an instrument so small as the human eye can take in 
so broad an expanse of landscape and sky. Yet, wonderfol 
as is its power, the eye is imperfect. It is limited as an organ, 
and the obstructions which it encounters limit the range of 
vision. The heaviness of the atmosphere and the lownesa 
of our position are among the impediments to perfect sight. 
It is possible that the eye will be made so perfect that not 
only shall we be able to see with ease, but the power of vision 
may be so augmented and exalted that we may be able to see 
with clearness for miles, and even hundreds of miles, possibly 
from world to world. This will not seem impossible when we 
think that the telescope has brought the moon within two 
hundred miles of our earth, and that by the microscope there 
has been revealed to us a world of beauty undreamed of 
before — the beauty in the speck of dust and in the insect, that 
the natural eye cannot see. In metaphysics there is discussed 
what is called the minimum visibila, the point where we 
begin to see. But the microscope has taught us that there is 
a point below that, and a point below that, and a point below 
that. It is probable that God has made no beauty in the 
gem or in the flower that he will not some time reveal to the 
perfected human eye. Take the sense of hearing. There is 
also in metaphysics what is called the minimum audibila, the 
point where we begin to hear. Then there is the point where 
the volume of sound overpowers the sense of hearing, as when 
we listen to the roar of Niagara. Huxley tells us that, had 



The Heavenly World. 179 

we an ear fine enough, we might catch the sweet music of the 
rippling rill that comes from the circulation of the sap in the 
thorn and the thistle, and the sweet music that murmurs in 
the flowers and sings in the leaves. Man may yet have an 
ear that will take them all in. 

There may be in this physical perfection not only an im- 
proved power of sight and hearing to go along with the per- 
fect physical universe, but there may also be a perfection of 
beauty. God's highest thought of the beautiful seems to 
ultimate in man, yet man is ever reaching forward to new 
ideals of beauty, and only in the other world is it probable 
that this yearning for the beautiful will be satisfied. Along 
with this there will doubtless be a sense of life, a sense of 
enduring strength, a sense of the satisfaction that comes from 
the harmonious action of all the functions of life. You may 
search the world over, and you wiU not find one in ten thou- 
sand who does not carry some scar, some blemish, some 
weakness. Yet there are times when we seem to revel in 
perfect health. It sparkles in the eye and glows upon the 
cheek, and we feel that life is in itself a blessing. I have no 
doubt that God intends to give us bodies in which these feel- 
ings of perfect health and strength will endure forever. 
Possibly these bodies will have power to transport them- 
selves from place to place. In the narrowed conditions of 
this life, how slowly we walk, with what difficulty we rise. 
We have brought the vessel and the car to our help, and yet 
how difficult it is for us to travel. The Scriptures abound in 
instances of the ability of heavenly beings to transport them- 
selves from place to place, from world to world ; and it is 



180 The Origin and Jjcsiiny of Man, 

"--^-^ssible that wlieii the human body exists in the highest per- 
fection, ic will be no longer weighed down by gravity to the 
surface of this little star, but will have the power of rising 
to worlds of surpass::! J b-^auty and magnificent proportions, 
worlds whose mountains are larger than our earth, whoso 
lakes would swallow up our oceans, whose rivers are like the 
confluence of all earth's streams. Take this body and make it 
perfect, give that body an eternity amid such scenes of mag- 
nificence and beauty, and you have some of the conditions of 
the future life. 

Then, again, according to the theories upon which we have 
been going, we shall have with us in the life to come oux 
minds. We shall carry with us the power of learning, the 
power of remembering, the power of reason. The Scriptures 
seem to make a point of the difference between the knowledge 
that is here and the knowledge that is hereafter, in this, that 
now we know but a part, then shall we know as we are known ; 
here we see through a glass darkly, there we shall see face to 
face. The Greek of this work "darkly" is en ainigmati — 
t-iat is, in a riddle, in an enigma. We seem to see things 
now, not as they really are, but only by a reflection and by a 
correspondence. And we read the language of correspond- 
ence but imperfectly. Possibly, could we see the likeness 
or correspondence of all things in earth and air and sky, in 
mountain and plain, in running streams and living trees, ir 
day and night, in cloud, in storm, in calm, to something 
within ourselves, we should see all the phases and varied 
moods of human minds and hearts, reflected back from this 
vast and changeful outer world. Into some such vision does 



The Heavenly World. 181 

the poet come in his charmed hours, and then gives ns a 
glimj)se, a faint sound, or echo, of all the beauty and senti- 
ment and truth that seek to reach us from what we thought 
the dumb world about us. Take the first feeble steps of 
childhood in knowledge ; take the advance in knowledge with 
youthhood, and the greater attainments of mature manhood. 
How little do we know, and how imperfectly do we know it ! 
Newton said that we travel along the shores of knowledge, 
picking up a few pebbles here and there, but the vast ocean 
beyond is all unknown. Take this thought of the human 
mind in the future. Possibly God will clothe it with a more 
direct perception of truth than is here possible. Here we 
see but " darkly." Take it in the truths that we try to bring 
before our minds. How often do we ponder over them in 
deep study, seeming to get them, and yet not to get them. 
How often do we hang over problems, and only after days 
and weeks of looking can we say, "Now I see it." Not only 
this, but there is the difficulty and slowness with which the 
mind works through the senses, getting the real beauty and 
charm of a scene only after much looking. Take a beautiful 
picture, a fair landscape, or lofty mountains ; you cannot sat- 
isfy yourself with once looking. It is only gradually and 
slowly that we become possessed oi all the beauty in the face 
on the canvas, of ail the charm in the landscape. Take the 
sweetest tones of the organ ; the music steals over the mind, 
and we want to hold it, but how futile is the effort. We get 
to a point where music ravishes the soul, then leaves us noth- 
ing but its memory. I love to think that these dull ears will 
after a while take in and hold a world of song beyond what w© 



182 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

dream of now ; that these dull eyes will see nothing darkly or 
imperfectly, but that the mind will see truth, see beauty — that 
it will grasp it as a fact, carry it as a fact, wear it as a gar- 
ment, live upon it as a tree of life. 

Then, again, we may make some calculation of what the 
mind will be in the future — the mind that begins here with its 
a, b, c, its 1, 2, 3 ; the mind that begins in the primer and 
goes to the reader ; that starts in the garden, the meadow and 
the field, and goes out to the continent ; that begins with its 
home, its county and state, and expands to the history of our 
material earth ; that begins to reason by adding its eight or 
ten figures, and grasps the combinations that enable it to 
travel out into space, weigh worlds and calculate their orbits. 
Give that mind five hundred years, with a body that knows 
no weakness, no weariness, no dying. Give it a thousand 
years, give it a million, a billion, a trillion years — give it eter- 
nity, and what may this mind of man be ! Take the power 
of memory. We value memory here beca use it saves the past 
to us. Without it we should have to begin a new life every 
day. We could carry with us no experience, no lesson, no 
truth. Each day we should have to begin anew. By memory 
"we hold to-day what we learned yesterday. By memory, as 
we journey out of sweet childood, we do not forget the cradle, 
the yard, the orchard, the home. Think of the preciousness 
of memory. I would not for anything you can imagine lose 
the recollections of the scenes where I played when a boy, 
the experiences of innocent childhood, the days when the 
famUy group gathered with father and mother by the old 
fire-place in the sunny South — days gone now and forever, but 



The Heavenly World. 183 

living in memory. As we grow older, memory becomes dearer 
because the yesterday gets longer ; it becomes more and more 
our life. Look at the grandmother sitting on the porch, 
knitting, knittiag away, but her mind is unraveling the long 
l^ast. Now, if memory serve to keep up the past here, and 
if, as I have argued, it is probable that nothing will be for- 
gotten, what is memory to be in the everlasting years ? If 
the memory of eighty years is worth so much, what will the 
memory be that preseiwes our life and thoughts, our joys and 
loves, in the future state ? When the cycles of the everlasting 
days shall have come and gone, when its suns shall have risen 
and set, still memory brings up the past. The heavenly 
world will include this. 

Take our heart-life, that which apprehends G-od, that 
which apprehends goodness, and take the voluntary element 
of our being ; and if you would enter into the thought of 
what the heavenly world will be, you must remember the 
method which God has selected to develop human life. He 
has come forth to us in instituted government, a government 
that works upon the heart of man. He has not only built 
around man a moral scaffolding, but He seeks in this life to 
write His laws on the tables of the human heart, as He wrote 
them for Moses on tables of stone. By the law of vicarious- 
ness and atonement, He touches the centre of our being. He 
makes us at one with Himself, at one with truth, at one with 
goodness, and so carrying us into the realm of goodness that, 
being true here, He knows we will be true up yonder ; purity 
being man's life here, purity will be his life forever. For it 
is written in the Scriptures that nothing that defileth can 



I;84 The Origin and Destiny of Mem. 

enter into the kingdom of God. Another thought : If the 
soul find such sweet satisfaction here in passing from under 
the law of commandment to the law of love, what will be its 
joy in that liberty which the law of love imparts in that state 
where men do the right for the love of right, where men love 
each other, love God, love the true, the beautiful and the 
good, and where no fear of harm, no alarm of danger, shall 
ever disturb its peaceful rest. 

"We shall have, too, our friendships — the friendships that 
begin in childhood, grow strong with our manhood, and ripen 
in old age. Then, too, there, are the loves of life ; loves that 
watched over and cared for the blossom of infancy; loves that 
have been shadowed by little graves ; loves that death can 
never conquer ; loves, too, deep and tender, that, alas ! often 
find no answering love here, but shall meet it there. I think 
that all these loves are to be carried over into the other state. 
Then take the social conditions of the heavenly world. There 
is a passage in Revelation that speaks of the kings of the 
earth bringing their treasure into the heavenly state. The 
idea seems to be that God will gather there all the most beau- 
tiful things of this life, all those things that contribute most 
to man's happiness here, those things that have been attained 
by the longest study and the hardest work. What would be 
our social life were sickness and death no more ; what 
would it be if we had the means of gathering and enjoying 
the largest libraries, the fairest flowers, the richest fruits ; if 
we could admire the works of the great masters in the finest 
galleries, listen to the sweetest voices and to the music evoked 
by the most skillful fingers ; if Ave could hear the reasoning 



The Hecwenly World. im 

of the wisest men, and learn of foreign lands from travelers 
who have seen the most — with these powers and advantages, 
what a school could we build up in this world! But think that 
all these things are gathered over yonder. Think of the pure 
hearts that have been going over there since time began ; the 
great thinkers from Pythagoras to Hamilton and Haven ; the 
great artists, from the days of Kuebens and Raphael ; the 
great singers, from Mozart to Haydn ; the sweet voices that 
sang on the plains of Judea, that have shouted from the high- 
lands of Scotland, and warbled in the melody of the Parepa 
Rosas ; the great historians, the travelers, the philanthropists; 
take childhood with its innocence, take the love of father and 
mother, of brother and sister, take the affection of friend for 
friend, — gather them all over there, and what may we not 
hope for ? 

There is one thing more, but I dare not talk longer — the 
thought of eternity. Anything less would make being but a 
mockery to man, a curse instead of a blessing ; for I honestly 
say to you that if there be not eternity, in which these souls 
can expand and live on, better, better would it be never to have 
been. If the problem were put to me to-night to die now 
forever, or to live five hundred years and then die with no 
hereafter, I would say, let me go now. If there be no eter- 
nity, life is a vain mockery, a delusion which had better never 
have been. But with eternity, with bodies stong and health- 
ful forever, with every sense acute and trained, with minds 
open to knowledge from every source, and hearts free to the 
sweet impulse of love — then the blessed thought of time 
enough will be with us forever. You do not know how much 



186 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

meaning there is to me in that thought. How many things 
we would gladly undertake, but we have not time. I Avould 
like to travel, but I haven't the time. I would like to sail^ 
not only on the Hudson but on the Nile, not only on the lakes 
of our own country, but on the oceans of the earth ; I haven't 
time. I would like to study the musty records of Egypt and 
Babylon, but I haven't time. I would like to study so many 
things, but there isn't time. There is time enough over there. 
I would like to give a few hundred years to botany, and win 
the love of every tree and flower upon the earth. I would 
like to study for a few thousand years in the strange and 
accurate combinations of numbers. I would like to read his- 
tory, beginning back in the far-off past when the hieroglyphs 
of Egypt were written. I would like to read everything that 
has ever been written or spoken by the great thinkers of 
earth. I would like to give thousands of years to music. I 
would like to make the acquaintance of ever soul in this city, 
in this state and in this vast country. I haven't time. But 
there is time enough there, and I am looking for the day 
when you and I will gather on the other shore, no longer 
feeling that it is 12 o'clock or 1 o'clock, that the sun is sink- 
ing, we must hurry home. We shall not feel that we have 
only a few more years, but we shall wake up in the fair 
morning of eternity, feeling that a youth of endless years is 
ours. Then we shall begin to plan and work forever ; then 
we shall sic down by the rippling stream and talk till the 
heart is satisfied ; wander through groves of stately trees and 
by paths strewn with flowers ; listen to sweet voices as they 
may come to sing from other planets, till the heart is satisfied. 



The Heavenly World. 187 

Time enough for every study, every journey, every love. 
What leanting man may gather in the endless beyond — what 
friendships he may have — what a traveler he may be — what a 
singer, what a reasoner, what a philosopher, may the years 
of endless experience develop. O, summerland of the soul ! 
land of beauty, land of flowers, land of love ! Often when 
the soul is heavy here, when the shadows are deepening, when 
the grass grows above the graves of loved ones, do we think 
of thy far-off shores, and glad will be the day when the angels 
shall open the gate for us to enter in. God grant, my friends, 
that this hope of a future world may be yours and mine. 
God grant that we may listen to sweeter music than we have 
heard here, know a deeper joy, a dearer truth, and live in a 
holier love in the long forever. 



XIV. 

CLOSING THOUGHTS. 



And further, by these, my soa, be admonished : of making many 
books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Let 
U8 hear the conclusion of the whole matter : Fear God, and keep his 
commandments : for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring 
every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or 
whether it be evil. — Ecolesiates, xii, 12-14. 

Who will render to every man according to his deeds : To them who, 
by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory and honor and 
immortality, eternal life : But unto them that are contentious, and do 
not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, 
tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil ; of the 
Jew first, and also of the Gentile. But glory, honor and peace to every 
man that worketh good ; to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile. For 
there is no respect of persons with God. — Komans, ii, 6-11. 

YOU may remember, my friends, that, as introductory 
to these discourses, one was given upon the Uses and 
Abuses of Doubt ; and now that the series has been 
gone through with, it seems proper that something should be 
said in the nature of general conclusions. But, first, I think 
it not out of place to allude to the fact of the unusually large 
audiences that for fourteen long weeks have given their 
closest attention to what has been said — without any doubt, 
the largest audiences that have regularly assembled in any 
Methodist chuch in the entire Northwest, and possibly, with 



Closing Thoughts. 189 

one exception, the largest in any cliurch. I am the more free 
to refer to this, because it is not so much the fact that I have 
been speaking as the character of the subjects that have been 
discussed that has brought you together; and I am free to refer 
to it again, as it speaks well for the thoughtfulness and intel- 
ligence of this community. Let it no longer be said that 
people are tired of everything that is not sensational. Let it 
be known that there is still, especially in this city, a deep and 
untii'ing interest in those questions requiring the closest 
thought — questions that are farthest removed from that 
which is sensational — questions that are as old as time itself, 
and that have been gone over thousands of times before they 
came into your hands and mine. 

I may remark, again, that in the beginning of this series I 
had no thought whatever that they were to appear in print. 
When the publishers of the HTiEATiB requested my manuscript 
for publication, I had to tell them I hadn't any, for to not one 
of these discourses have I ever done anything in the way of 
written preparation more than what might be noted on half 
a sheet of paper. But I said to them, as Socrates said to his 
friends when they gathered around him as he drank the fatal 
hemlock, and asked him about his preference in regard to the 
mode of his burial — he told them, if they could "catch him," 
it made but little difference about the rest. So I said to these 
friends, if they could catch these discouses, they were wel- 
come to them. And I now, in behalf of the audience, thank 
them for their courtesy, and for their enterprise in thus 
preserving them for the future. It cannot be expected that 
there should be that closeness of reasoning, that finish and 



190 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

perfection of style, that thorough working out of thought on 
all points, in an extemporaneous address that you will find 
when discourses are printed from written manuscript. It is a 
fact that, of all the sermons which are given in Chicago 
papers, nearly every one is printed from the manuscript 
entirely ; and there is hardly one man in a thousand, or in 
ten thousand, who is willing to have his words reported and 
printed in the papers just as he speaks. I have felt it not 
improper to allude to this, for it is one thing to speak to the ear, 
and quite another thing to write for the cool and critical eye. 
I could wish these discourses were more perfect, but I have 
all along felt that the work was not wholly mine, but, in a 
measure. His who has called me into this field ; and my 
prayer has gone up more than once that God's blessing might 
rest upon the hundreds who have read them, whom I have 
never seen. 

It seems proper now, after these fourteen weeks, that we 
turn aside and look for a moment over the vast range that we 
have been led to travel. Beginning with what we caU time, 
and going back in the search for the origin of our race, we 
were naturally led to think of the first cause, the cause that 
lay back of this, and so we pushed off from the shores of 
time, and found ourselves back in eternity, and then, retrac- 
ing our steps to the point where we began, we attempted to 
go forward with the questions of the future. We soon traveled 
out again beyond the bounds of time, and foiind ourselves 
launched upon the eternity to come. Thus we have gone 
both ways tni we stood out in the dim and distant shadows. 
Searching for the origin of things, we were led to think of 



Closing Thoughts. 191 

the first cause. Then we found ourselves not alone, but in 
the midst of a vast creation, in the midst of a world full of 
beings and life, in the midst of a system of worlds, and this 
joined to other systems, making the vast universe itself. 
Then, again, coming to ourselves, we found a nature endowed 
with consciousness ; we found ourselves not only possessing 
bodies and minds, but spirits that were nearly related to God. 
Then we found ourselves in a world where there is both good 
and evil. Having looked at this we were brought face to face 
with the question of the divine government over man, the 
methods of promoting good, for repressing evil, and for the 
formation of character. Then taking up the questions of 
destiny, we were brought to look at the change we call death; 
to think of the life of the spirit after death ; to try to fathom 
the deep waters of immortality; to think of the spirit-life as 
separated from the bodily organism, and then as having a 
resurrection body; to consider the question of our responsi- 
bility and of our answering to God in the great judgment ; 
then to take up the difficult question of the consequences of 
evil, the future suffering of the ungood ; and finally to con- 
sider the life of the redeemed in heaven. 

Now, before passing again from this field, we want to stand 
aside a moment and look at the magnitude of these questions. 
How great they are ! How easily, how almost automatically, 
we pronounce the words that seem to indicate them, and yet 
it is only when we come to look at them and turn them over 
in thought that we feel and grasp even the shadow of their 
greatness. Think of the magnitude of the question of God. 
How shall we bound this question ? With what lines shall 



19-2 Tlte Origin and Destiny of Man 

we fatliom it — undoubtedly the greatest question that ever 
engaged human thought — this question of God ? Think, 
too, of the greatness of the question of the universe. How 
amazing is its vast extent, how wonderful that the stars 
above us should be but parts of it, and that it goes out to 
the most distant regions of space. How great a question is 
even the fact of human existence ! How inexplicable our own 
being, that you and I live, tliat we hear each other's voice, 
and see each other's face ! How great a question is that of 
destiny ! How wonderful the thought that the worlds which 
are about us continue ; that we continue beyond death ; how 
solemn the thought that we have entered upon a being that 
is never to end ! How great a question is that of the rewards 
to the good, how deep and solemn the question of the suffer- 
ings that come upon those who do evil. 

In looking at the vastness of these questions, I have felt 
more than once, and perhaps you have had the same feeling, 
how little, how very little, do we know concerning them. I 
was conversing about a year ago with one of the most learned 
men in the Northwest, a professor of one of our colleges, and 
I asked what he thought about these questions, and the 
honest reply of the honest, gray -headed man was this : "As 
I have come up into years, and have had time to think, one 
thing has become plain to me. 1 am reaching a point where 
I can draw a line between what I know and what I don't 
know, and almost everything is on the side I don't know." 
So it must ever be with beings so limited in their faculties. 
So it has been and must be with all the great thinkers of the 
earth. We must all sooner or later reach the conclusion that 



Closing Thoughts, 193 

the problem is too great for us. We must sooner or later 
reach the point where we are not only willing but glad to 
confess how little, how very little, we know with any fullness. 
Beginning with the simplest things of life, we must feel that 
we know but little about them. "We know these flowers upon 
the desk bloom in sweetness and beauty. We may know 
their names, and may be able to classify them, to speak of 
their colors and know their peculiarities. We have only 
learned a few things about them. What they are, we do not 
know; how they are, we do not know. We may know that we 
are here ; tohat we are, and how we are, we do not know. The 
moment we begin to think upon ourselves, we are in a world 
of mystery profound. Whether we look on the singing-bird, 
or the leaf stirred by the wind ; whether we look at the ray 
of light, or the rainbow in the heavens ; whether we look at 
the cloud that sweeps across the sky, or at the rainstorm that 
floods the valley; whether we look up or down, within or 
without, at the cradle or the grave, if we look with intelli- 
gence enough to perceive what is, we can but feel how little 
we know. 

Then, when we' attempt to go back into the past, we are 
lost in the dim light of tradition. Go back and weigh the 
balance as best we can, the past is shadowed in mystery. 
Attempt to go out into the vast realm of creation, into the 
interstellar depths above and about us, and we are lost again. 
Attempt to think of God : how deep the thought ! The heart 
may feel its meaning, and may know its presence, but it is 
not given to man by searching to find out God. I would not 
discourage any one by saying how little we know. Rather 
13 



194 The Origin and Destiny of 3Ian. 

would I tiy to lielp you, if you have found out this fact. 
Eather would I have you begin down in the primers of truth. 
Bather would I encourage all to think that we only turn 
a few leaves here, and that the book of thinking and learning 
will have other leaves to turn when the millions of years that 
await us in the future have become a part of the ever-length- 
ening past. 

I want to stand aside from the field we have been going 
over, not only to reflect upon how very little of these things 
we know with fullness, but I want to try to pick out from 
this vast world of the known and the unknown, a few of the 
things that we may account as pretty well settled in human 
thinking. For you may ask: If there is so little we know, 
what are we to do ? Are we to sit down and feel that nothing 
is certain? Far from it. There is a difference between 
knowing certainly and knowing fully. I hold to the pliiloso- 
phy of realism — that our senses do not deceive us, that 
consciousness is not a lie, and that we certainly know. Yet 
so limited are our powers that we cannot know fully and 
exhaustively. The fact that we cannot know everything is no 
good reason for saying that we cannot know anything. We 
are like those who may know but one language, going to some 
monument on which there is a writing in English, in French, 
iu German, in Latin, in Greek, in Syriac. They might find 
the tomb, but, reading only English, they would not know 
what the other languages said. It is like our knowing a field, 
a garden, and the roads that traverse our neighborhood or 
county. We know these things certainly, but there is always 
a beyond that we do not know. We know only a part of any- 



Closing Thoughts. 195 

thing. Take the question of God. I beg you to receive and 
rest upon this great truth, not so much from the arguments 
that give it plausibility, but rather from the quick and certain 
intuitions of the heart that come out and perceive God. I 
•would not, for my o^Yn purpose, give one penny for all the 
arguments that have been offered, from the days of Clarke 
and Descartes and Butler down to the latest utterances of 
Mill, in proof or disproof of the question of God. They are 
valuable ; they are interesting as displays of mental power, 
of deep thinking. They may be very helpful to some minds. 
To me, personally, as far as assuring the fact, they are value- 
less. I perceive God from the spii'itual intuitions of my 
being. I walk in His presence and companionship by the 
light of the spirit rather than by the conclusions of the 
intellect. 

Another fact we may regard as settled is the existence of 
material things. It may seem simple to place emphasis on a 
statement like this, but it is in the stating and restating that 
the worth of such a fact consists — the fact that there is a 
material existence ; the fact that there is wood, and iron, and 
stone, and water ; the fact that this great system of worlds is 
not an illusion ; when realized, it is a great fact. Another fact 
I would mention as settled in human thought is the fact of 
law. Not only is there a Supreme Being and a material exist- 
ence, but there is certainly the presence of what we call law, 
also — ^the presence of order, of purpose, of design, so that 
things do not fall out by chance or accident. You can, if you 
once find the law of anything depend upon the everlasting 
trueness of that law. And it is a wonderful fact, if it dawns 



196 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

upon our mind, that ourselves and the universe about us are 
the subjects of law; that there is something back of what 
occurs to determine and shape it ; that we are in the midst of 
certainty, not of uncertainty. For without the presence 
of law, we could not calculate ; we could not live for the 
future ; we could not lay plans, saying, to-day I will begin, 
and to-morrow I will continue. Law gives to wood its 
strength, to iron its strength, to stone its endurance, and the 
builder knows and depends upon this law in every step he 
takes. There is also another fact — the fact of moral laws. 
There is such a thing as right, such a thing as wrong. There 
is character that is formed along the line of good, or along 
the line of evil. Another fact accounted settled in the world 
of thought is the fact of a future state. I state it as a fact. 
Possibly, to some, I am straining a point when I do this. But 
it does seem to me, that man may stand here upon these 
shores and calculate with certainty, and feel it as a truth, that 
there is a future state of being — that the life that is here is 
carried over there. And as we stand in the presence of this 
fact, another fact comes before us, that there, as well as 
here, goodness will have its reward, and evil its suffering. 

Now as I have more than once led you to feel, and have felt 
with you myself, the presence of the uncertain, and as we 
have more than once come up to the line of the partially 
known and to the unknown, I want to state to you that, giving 
full sweep to all the doubts we have encountered, admitting 
fully the little that we know and making full account of the 
things that are uncertain, there is yet enough left on which to 
anchor ourselves ; enough left on which to build character ; 



Closing Thouglits, 197 

enough left to sustain the idea of right and the blessed teach- 
ings of religion. I want to say this because many sincere 
people feel that if we reveal, or admit, the fact of doubt, 
everything is liable to fall through. If we know so little, 
they say, how can we be sure that we know anything ? But 
I want to say to you, my friends, give the doubt it^ full bene- 
fit, draw the line between the known and the unknown and 
make the unknown the greater part, and still there is enough 
left. 

Take this first question on which we began, and on which 
we have been talking more or less directly in every one of 
these discourses — the question of God. Suppose I admit 
that by reason I cannot find out God. Suppose I admit that 
I cannot even conceive in my mind of a personal God. Sup- 
pose I admit that when I talk to you of infinity, of a universe 
of worlds rolling on through space, I am utterly unable to 
think of a personal being back of all this ; that I cannot com- 
pass the thought of God. What then ? Suppose even — 
though I have no fear of it — that we should be driven to the 
point of admitting that there is no personal God. Even if we 
should be forced to that extreme, everything is not gone. 
Matthew Arnold, in his late work entitled "God and the 
Bible," says that though we may not be able to conceive of a 
personal God, we must admit that there is a something not 
of ourselves that makes for righteousness. Here is the pres- 
ence of the world and the universe ; the fact of law, the fact 
that goodness is rewarded and evil punished. Make these 
facts and these laws God, if it so seems to you, think of it as 
you will, still this great fact is before the mind, that there is 



198 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

a something not of ourselves, that makes for righteousness. 
There is that in the constitution of things out of which char- 
acter may be formed. There is that which assures the rewards 
of virtue and the penalties of vice. I call this something a 
personal, living God. Or, suppose we admit another thing in 
the realm of doubt : that the origin of our race is buried in 
inexplicable darkness ; that possibly the Darwinian theory is 
correct, and that man has come up from the worm through 
countless stages of development to his present state of being. 
Suppose we admit this. It don't make any difference. We 
are here. Over what road we came, we may not be able to 
say; but our belief or unbelief on that point cannot alter the 
fact of our presence in the world. Suppose we are unable to 
solve the question of the origin of evil ; supi^ose this theory 
be so, or suppose that be so. There is no theory but what 
will encounter its difficulties. The fact of evil in the world 
is still a fact. You cannot by doubt get away from it. Sup- 
pose I am unable to explain to you how it is that prayer helps 
the soul ; how it is that virtue is rewarded ; how it is, and 
why it is, that evil is punished. These great facts still 
remain. Suppose that I am unable to outline with definite- 
ness and with certainty what the future life will be, what 
will be the manner of the resurrection of the body, what will 
be the life of the spirit, what will be the heaven or hell of the 
future. My ignorance or inability does not take away the 
great facts. The point I want to make clear is that, giving 
doubt everything it may claim on these questions, there is 
enough left, and more than enough, for all that we need to 
stand upon. Take this question of the future. Often have I 



Closing Tlioughts. 199 

left the bedside of the dying, feeling the very breath and 
presence of the angels as they came in triumph to welcome 
the departing soul, and the next moment, as I stood out on 
the great earth, possibly on a cold winter night, I have asked, 
where has that spirit gone ? Where in this expanse of worlds 
is that soul that but now was here ? Suppose I feel the mys- 
tery, as I doubtless must, still, still, my faith lives; the fact 
that a soul has left our shores is before me, and because I 
cannot follow its strange flight I need not turn around and say 
that it has ceased to be. 

I want you to come to this feeling — the sooner the better. 
There is a measure of mystery, of uncertainty and doubt, on 
these questions, and there are hundreds of things we cannot 
understand fully. There is not a man in the world that 
knows certainly who wrote the book of Genesis, the book of 
Exodus, of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. But 
suppose we don't know. The books are here. Nobody knows, 
or ever will know, whether we have in the New Testament the 
exact words that Christ uttered. But suppose we do not 
know these things, and cannot know them. We can take the 
sacred volume and see the truth it teaches ; we know the light 
it pours on dark places ; we feel its influence on character. 
We can use the Bible for soul culture — find in it life and help. 
Suppose we leave our lofty places and come down, and say 
we are beginners, poor children of the dust, but yesterday in 
the cradle, and only at noon our mothers let go of our hands. 
Suppose we see with our weak, longing gaze the mystery, 
and the unknown comes down to our very faces. Still there 
is left the little that we do know, and tlie grand fields of hope 



200 The Origin and Desiiny of Man. 

to wliich the spirit aspires. The sooner we come to realize 
this, the better for us. There are some men who claim to 
know everything — a claim which is the very best evidence that 
they do not know anything as they ought to know it. Get as 
much knowledge as we may of history and the sciences, ex- 
plore as we may the questions of the future, still we must feel 
how very little we know, and how much uncertainty there is. 
But when we come to feel and acknowledge this, then we are 
getting into a state where we shall not feel like quarreling 
with each other, to the place where we will try to do the best 
we can under the circumstances. 

This brings me again to speak of what may seem to be the 
course of wisdom. With persons situated in this life as we 
are, learning a little, with much that seems beyond our reach, 
what is the part of wisdom for us under the circumstances ? 
Wisdom suggests that we go on as we have been going, learn- 
ing as fast as we can and as much as we can. Read the good 
old Bible ; make it a daily companion. There is something 
in it so true to life and human experience that I feel it must 
be true. Learn what history we can ; study the sciences ; 
take up the question of religion as best we may. It does us 
good to try to learn, to struggle with doubt, to overcome our 
ignorance. Many a time I have spent the hours of the night 
till 3 o'clock in the morning, struggling because the darkness 
was so close about me, because of the little I knew. I seemed 
lost like a speck in infinity. But there is a great good in this 
struggle ; there is a purpose of God in it. To-day we put our 
feet in the road and go as far as the spring, perhnps to the 
meadow ; to-morrow we will go out into the field, climb over 



Closing Thoughts. 201 

the fence, go beyond the timber, ascend the mountain — go 
on, still learning. 

Situated as we are, we ought to have charity for each other's 
opinions ; we should give each other a large amount of per- 
sonal liberty in matters of belief. When I feel that I know 
so very little, when there are so few things I can lay claim to 
having gone thoroughly around, I cannot feel like holding my 
neighbor to account for his belief. In the name of God ! 
when the infinite depths cannot hold the name of that God, 
am I to quarrel with my neighbor, because, when the Divine 
Being passes by, he gets a clearer view than I do ? Must I 
denounce him because he sees a higher truth in what Christ 
says than I have been able to see ? No ! no ! I say, brother, 
the great book of God and of nature is open ; the beautiful 
stars are shining ; the great earth is spread out before us. Go 
forth and gather such fruit as you can ; and though you may 
not see just as I see, though you may not believe as I believe, 
I will tell you what I believe, and listen to what you believe ; 
and if we cannot see alike, we will not fall out by the way 
over that. If we cannot agree, we may at least reverently put 
aside the weapons of persecution and intolerance in the pres- 
ence of the great truths over which the human brain has been 
pondering and differing for centuries. 

Another thing seems to me reasonable, and that is to try to 
get that truth which does us good, the truth that helps us out 
of evil, that helps to form character, that brings purity and 
holiness. I ask you to bring into the great arena of religious 
thought not only the formulas of logic, not only the schools 
of learning and the a-^uteness of reason — I ask you to bring 



202 The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

to this question the longing and wants of the heart. Onr 
text says: **0f making many books there is no end, and 
much study is a weariness of the flesh." From the depths of 
my heart do I sympathize with the men and women of our 
land who are bringing only the intellect to this work, who are 
puzzling over evolution, and the authorship of the Pentateuch, 
and giving their time and talents to similar questions, around 
which doubt may ever linger, and all the time their souls are 
not at rest. Oh, my friends, there is something more than 
an intellectual struggle here. There is something that comes 
right to your door and is in every one's thought. It is a ques- 
tion that you can very easily solve, and then you will be will- 
ing to lay these mental doubts at rest. It is the question 
that the whole duty of man is summed up in this : "Fear 
God and keep his commandments" — that is the great truth ; 
God has no respect of persons, but every man shall be re- 
warded according to his deeds — that is the great promise. 
More willing than is father or mother to feed the hungry 
child is the Infinite God to extend pardon and life to His err- 
ing children. Let us but feel this, and these other questions 
may be this way or that way ; it matters not. The man whose 
sight had been restored by Christ's healing touch could not 
answer the sophistries of those who questioned him, but he 
could say : ** One thing I know, that whereas one© I was 
blind, now I see." 

I am not talking idle words, but am saying these things 
from the depths of a conviction that has been wrought out 
through days of study and nights of prayer. When my mind 
has bent and broken to the ground under the weight of 



Closing Thoughts. 203 

thought, I have blessed God that my heart-life was luminous, 
that I had peace iu my soul, that I knew the sweetness of par- 
don, that I knew His love. I have blessed God that there is 
a peace that passeth understanding. And here is the point I 
want you to come to. Fifty years from this I would not give 
a snap for your opinion about hundreds of things that may 
seem of great interest now. But of greater value than worlds 
will it be to you that you have held to principle, that you have 
held fast to the truth that saves the soul. This is the great 
question, and the mistake of our age and the mistake of our 
churches is that men are warring and fighting over things of 
but little moment ; wherer.s the great fact of importance is 
character, righteousness, purity, usefulness iu the world. 
Why, for us to hold off from religion and from gaining this 
character, because there is a mystery, an unknown we cannot 
fathom, would be like a people in this spring-time refusing to 
sow grain because they do not know how and why it will 
ripen ; it would be like men refusing to eat because they do 
not know how food will nourish them. Yet men have grown 
grain for ages without knowing how it ripens in the stalk. 
Men have lived by eating and breathing who never knew a 
law of physiology. And there are millions of souls about the 
throne of God who have gone up from a state of purity, of 
conscious trust in God, but all innocent of the learning of the 
schools. Many of the great controversialists of the age have 
gone up to heaven from opposing sides. There will be found 
not only Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, but millions of their 
sons and daughters — not only Protestants, but millions who 
have gone up from the church of Kome. 



204 ^ The Origin and Destiny of Man. 

It is character that we want to gain — the inward truth and 
purpose of Kfe. Then it is wise for us to say, we will take up 
the cause of Christ and righteousness with the little we know ; 
we will turn a page now and another page to-morrow ; we 
will do right ; we will go a little way to day, and we will jour- 
ney on to-morrow. Take this truth, this purity — fear Grod 
and keep his commandments — and then, as you go forward, 
you may correct many errors. I have many things in my 
book of little knowledge to revise to-morrow ; and when I get 
over into the other life, many things on which I have prided 
myself here may be of little account there. But in this I 
cannot be mistaken, that God is love, and that He loves me. 
I cannot be mistaken in this, that I have been led out of sin, 
that I love the right, that God requires that I do the best I 
can. Take up these truths when I am gone, and live them 
well, and may we together study them over in the long to- 
morrow, in the bright forever. 



